Largest photographs in the world
Encyclopedia
Most of the photographs that are claimed to be the largest are stitched from smaller images. The Legacy Project photograph made in Irvine, California is an exception to this in that it was made as a single exposure on a seamless piece of sensitized fabric using a building as a huge camera.
Print
The largest seamless photograph made in a single exposure was made using a Southern California jet hangar transformed into a giant camera. The most recent claim to the largest image stitched together was by the Canadian Museum of Civilization
.
On July 12, 2006, six photographers (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh
, and Clayton Spada), unveiled what is currently the world's largest camera and photograph.
The 3552 square feet (330 m²) photograph was made to mark the end of 165 years of film/chemistry-based photography and the start of the age of digital photography. It was taken using a decommissioned Marine Corps jet hangar (Building #115 at El Toro) transformed into the world's largest camera to make the world's largest picture. The hangar-turned-camera recorded a panoramic image of what was on the other side of the door using the centuries-old principle of "camera obscura
" or pinhole camera
. An image of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station appeared upside down and flipped left to right on film after being projected through the tiny hole in the hangar's metal door. The "film" is a 32 feet (9.8 m) by 111 feet (33.8 m) piece of white fabric covered in 20 gallons (75.71 liters) of light-sensitive emulsion as the "negative".
After exposing the fabric for 35 minutes the image was developed by 80 volunteers using a giant custom-made tray of vinyl pool liner. Development employed 600 gallons (2271 liters) of black-and-white developer solution and 1,200 gallons (4542 liters) of fixer pumped into the tray by ten high volume pumps. Print washing used fire hoses connected to two fire hydrants.
The scene was originally produced on 6x6 cm transparency film shot with a Hasselblad 80mm lens in many overlapping sections. 80 rolls of film were used over several sites with this scene being finally chosen. The site is the estuary of Nasparti Bay at the base of the Brooks Peninsula on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Shot in 1987 or 1988 to be ready for the opening of the museum in 1989. The installation is actually two scrims of identical size, one behind the other in mirror image to give the viewers a 3-dimensional experience while walking beside the diorama.
Within the Canadian Museum of Civilization
, one wall of the massive Grand Hall is composed of a scrim covered by a photo of a forest. The photo is about 100 m (328 ft) by 15 m (49 ft).
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Full size zoomable image, Site 2
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This image is the largest spherical panoramic photo in the world.
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Related image - Delicate Arch
from lower viewpoint
Related image - Balanced Rock
Related image - Courthouse Towers
Related image - Delicate Arch
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Blog explaining the full process to create such an image
Paris 26 Gigapixels is an interactive image showing a view of the French capital and its famous monuments, from the Eiffel Tower to the Pantheon. It was shot by photographer Arnaud Frich using a custom-made panoramic head and 2 Canon 5D Mark II DSLR cameras with 300mm f4.0 lenses and two 2x tele converter (equivalent 600mm f8.0). The 2346 images of the project were then assembled using Kolor Autopano Giga software. The website was created using several technologies: Kolor Autopano Tour, KRpano and Microsoft Research's HDview.
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Blog explaining how the panorama was made
This image, when published in 12/2009, was the largest fully spherical panoramic photo in the world. It is 192,000 pixels wide and 96,000 pixels tall. When printed, it is 16 meters (53 feet) long at regular photographic quality (300dpi). It was shot in early October 2009 from the top of the Zizkov TV Tower in Prague, Czech Republic in collaboration with Prague 3 town hall. Canon 5D MKII digital SLR camera and a 200mm lens were used. Hundreds of shots were shot over a few hours; these shots were then stitched together on a computer over the following few weeks.
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The image is the largest Canadian photo created as of August 20, 2011.
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Shot took place on February 20, 2009 on the terrace of the 1st floor of the restaurant "Le Super Megève ", located in Rochebrune, 1754 meters (Megève, Haute Savoie, France).
The panorama stretches in 180°, from left to right, from the Torraz (1930 metres) to the Aiguille du Midi (2487 meters). Are visible the village of Megève, the Aiguille du Midi, the Mont-Blanc...
Assemblage of 2321 pictures of 12 million pixels stitched into a picture of 16,71 billions pixels. (217452x76846 = 16,710,316,392 Pixels).
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The 16.1 Gigapixel size was reached by HAL9000 Srl. The project "The Last Supper" was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, it is a stitched photograph created merging 1677 shots from a single point into one photograph, each shot 12.2 Megapixel in size.
The Last Supper - full size zoomable
The 13 Gigapixel size was reached by Gerard Maynard.
The 2045 images were taken with a Nikon D2X with 300 mm lens mounted on a modified Peace River Studios PixOrb. The stitching and exporting was done automatically by Autopano Pro.
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Full size zoomable image, gigapan.org
The 8.6 Gigapixel size was reached by HAL9000 Srl.
The project Parete Gaudenziana was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, it is a stitched photograph created merging 1145 shots from a single point into one photograph, each shot 12.2 Megapixel big.
A story of the picture has been published by Rob Galbraith.
The previous record belonged to Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
.
One of these attempts was by Dutch company TNO. The project dubbed "Gigapix" was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, although it is a stitched photograph by merging hundreds of small sections into one photograph. According to an article in The Register and a Slashdot story, the photograph is 78,797 by 31,565 pixels large. It was taken on a Nikon
D1X camera
.
A preview of the image can be seen at:
The previous record belonged to Max Lyons of Gigapixel Images. He had at one stage claimed to have created the largest photo. It consisted of 196 images that were stitched together. Since then this claim has been surpassed by that of the TNO attempt. TNO's Gigapix is 2.5 times larger.
The previous record may have belonged to Jim Hellemn of Blue Ocean Art. In 1999, Hellemn created a 1.77 gigapixel underwater photocomposite image, which was designed to facilitate life-size reproduction of a 20 ft high by 70 ft wide section of Bloody Bay Wall, a vertical coral reef wall in the Cayman Islands. The image consisted of over 300 images that were manually stitched together from 4000ppi drum scans of Fuji Provia 100 transparency film. To make the image, a grid of 280 frames was photographed with 30% overlap to accurately cover the reef wall with full-spectrum light revealing the natural color and detail of the reef. Additional frames of marine life carefully photographed in the same grid composited in place to complete the scene. The on-site photography, requiring 23 dives and over 12 hours underwater to complete, was accomplished over a ten day period by Jim Hellemn, with assistants Larry Hellemn and Peter Neubauer, using a neutrally-buoyant camera platform Hellemn designed specifically for the project. The post production of the image was completed in six months using multiple Macintosh G4 computers at Photographix in Poway, California, a digital graphics company owned by Hellemn.
A zoomable version of the image was made available to the public in 2000 using the ER Mapper's ECW (file format)
and Image Web Server software on a site operated by Fugro-Pelagos, allowing visitors to explore the life-size image. The project and the techniques used by Hellemn inspired researchers at Miami university to use similar methods to produce wide-coverage video mosaics to study coral reefs. RSMAS. 2006 Annual Report The image was published in the October 2001 issue of National Geographic Magazine, "Portrait of a Coral Reef".
A preview of the image can be seen at:
Canadian Museum of Civilization
The Canadian Museum of Civilization is Canada's national museum of human history and the most popular and most-visited museum in Canada....
.
Largest seamless example
- Name of project/picture: The Great PictureThe Great Picture, The Great Picture holds the Guinness World Record for the largest print picture, and the camera with which it was made holds a record for being the largest. The picture was taken in 2006 as part of the , a photographic compilation and record of the airfield's history before it is transformed into...
- Claimed by: The Legacy Project; (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCullohDouglas McCullohDouglas McCulloh is an American photographer notable for conceptual photographic projects based on “systematic randomness” and chance operations. McCulloh’s work is “an extension of the traditions of street photography, social documentary photography, oral history and Surrealist chance...
, and Clayton Spada) - Photograph of: control tower and runways at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Orange County, California
- Dimensions: 32 feet (9.8 m) high x 111 feet (33.8 m) wide (9.75h X 33.83w meters). Aspect ratioAspect ratioThe aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...
is 3.47:1.
On July 12, 2006, six photographers (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh
Douglas McCulloh
Douglas McCulloh is an American photographer notable for conceptual photographic projects based on “systematic randomness” and chance operations. McCulloh’s work is “an extension of the traditions of street photography, social documentary photography, oral history and Surrealist chance...
, and Clayton Spada), unveiled what is currently the world's largest camera and photograph.
The 3552 square feet (330 m²) photograph was made to mark the end of 165 years of film/chemistry-based photography and the start of the age of digital photography. It was taken using a decommissioned Marine Corps jet hangar (Building #115 at El Toro) transformed into the world's largest camera to make the world's largest picture. The hangar-turned-camera recorded a panoramic image of what was on the other side of the door using the centuries-old principle of "camera obscura
Camera obscura
The camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...
" or pinhole camera
Pinhole camera
A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture – effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box...
. An image of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station appeared upside down and flipped left to right on film after being projected through the tiny hole in the hangar's metal door. The "film" is a 32 feet (9.8 m) by 111 feet (33.8 m) piece of white fabric covered in 20 gallons (75.71 liters) of light-sensitive emulsion as the "negative".
After exposing the fabric for 35 minutes the image was developed by 80 volunteers using a giant custom-made tray of vinyl pool liner. Development employed 600 gallons (2271 liters) of black-and-white developer solution and 1,200 gallons (4542 liters) of fixer pumped into the tray by ten high volume pumps. Print washing used fire hoses connected to two fire hydrants.
Largest example assembled from multiple pieces
- Name of project/picture: Unknown (Grand Hall diorama background)
- Claimed by: Canadian Museum of CivilizationCanadian Museum of CivilizationThe Canadian Museum of Civilization is Canada's national museum of human history and the most popular and most-visited museum in Canada....
- Photograph of: Canadian Aboriginal forest
- Dimensions: 112 m (367 ft) (W) x 15 m (49 ft) (H)
- Photographers: Rob d'Estrube assisted by Dirk Heydemann of DESTRUBE PHOTOGRAPHY of Victoria B.C. Canada
The scene was originally produced on 6x6 cm transparency film shot with a Hasselblad 80mm lens in many overlapping sections. 80 rolls of film were used over several sites with this scene being finally chosen. The site is the estuary of Nasparti Bay at the base of the Brooks Peninsula on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Shot in 1987 or 1988 to be ready for the opening of the museum in 1989. The installation is actually two scrims of identical size, one behind the other in mirror image to give the viewers a 3-dimensional experience while walking beside the diorama.
Within the Canadian Museum of Civilization
Canadian Museum of Civilization
The Canadian Museum of Civilization is Canada's national museum of human history and the most popular and most-visited museum in Canada....
, one wall of the massive Grand Hall is composed of a scrim covered by a photo of a forest. The photo is about 100 m (328 ft) by 15 m (49 ft).
Digital photograph
The following are the digital photographs that have held the record for being the largest, beginning with the most recent:Shanghai 272 Gigapixels (112G Estimated Optical Pixels)
- Name of project/picture: Shanghai - 272 Gigapixels - 0.27 Terapixels
- Claimed by: Rongkai Zhao
- Photograph of: ShanghaiShanghaiShanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
- Pixels: 272,312,102,608
- Optical pixels estimated based on picture overlap model: 112 Gigapixels
- Optical pixels estimated based on pixel angular size model: 117 - 119 Gigapixels
- Total images: 12000
- Size: 1.24 TB (raw data)
- Year: shooting: May 25, 2010, public availability: Dec 20th, 2010
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Full size zoomable image, Site 2
Sevilla 111 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Sevilla - 111 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Jose Manuel Domínguez Pablo Pompa
- Photograph of: Sevilla
- Pixels: 111,173,273,248
- Total images: 9750
- Year: shooting: Sep 29th, 2010, public availability: Dec 12th, 2010
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Sugar Loaf 152 Gigapixels (90G - 92G Estimated Optical Pixels)
- Name of project/picture: Sugar Loaf - 0.15 Terapix
- Claimed by: RioHK group
- Photograph of: Rio de JaneiroRio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
- Pixels: 152,407,683,304
- Year: shooting: 20.07.2010, public availability: 28.09.2010
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London 80 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: London 80 gigapixels
- Claimed by: Jeffrey Martin (360cities.net)
- Photograph of: LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... - Pixels: 80,000,000,000
- Year: shooting: summer 2010, public availability: 16.11.2010
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This image is the largest spherical panoramic photo in the world.
Arches 77 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Arches National Park - 77 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Rongkai Zhao
- Photograph of: Arches National ParkArches National ParkArches National Park is a U.S. National Park in eastern Utah. It is known for preserving over 2000 natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch, in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations....
- Park Avenue Trail Head - Pixels: 77,966,309,790
- Year: shooting: Sept 6th, 2010, public availability: Sept 18th, 2010
Full size zoomable image
Related image - Delicate Arch
Delicate Arch
Delicate Arch is a tall freestanding natural arch located in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah.It is the most widely-recognized landmark in Arches National Park and is depicted on Utah license plates and on a postage stamp commemorating Utah's centennial anniversary of statehood in 1996...
from lower viewpoint
Related image - Balanced Rock
Balanced Rock
Balanced Rock is one of the most popular features of Arches National Park, situated in Grand County, Utah, United States. Balanced Rock is located next to the park's main road, at about 9 miles from the park entrance....
Related image - Courthouse Towers
Courthouse Towers
The Courthouse Towers is a collection of tall stone columns located in Arches National Park....
Related image - Delicate Arch
Delicate Arch
Delicate Arch is a tall freestanding natural arch located in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah.It is the most widely-recognized landmark in Arches National Park and is depicted on Utah license plates and on a postage stamp commemorating Utah's centennial anniversary of statehood in 1996...
Budapest 70 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: 70 Billion Pixels Budapest
- Claimed by: 360systems Ltd.
- Photograph of: BudapestBudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
- Pixels: 71,303,841,000
- Year: shooting: 2010
Full size zoomable image (requires Silverlight)
Corcovado 67 Gigapixels
(Not a cropped image, the sides of the picture are not straight. The real picture is smaller with the black parts on the edge.)- Name of project/picture: Corcovado 67 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: RioHK group
- Photograph of: Rio de JaneiroRio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
- Pixels: 67,821,473,740
- Year: shooting: 08.07.2010, public availability: 22.07.2010
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Vienna 50 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Vienna 50 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Photoartkalmar
- Photograph of: ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
- Dimensions: 404864px (W) × 124832px (H)
- Pixels: 50,539,982,848
- Year: shooting: 07.2010, public availability: 07.2010
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Marburg 47 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Marburg 47 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Peter Lauritis - Polk Systems
- Photograph of: Marburg
- Pixels: 47,676,298,005
- Year: shooting: 07.2010, public availability: 20.07.2010
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Dubai 45 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Dubai 45 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Gerald Donovan
- Photograph of: Dubai
- Dimensions: 472603px (W) × 94955px (H)
- Pixels: 44,876,017,865
- Year: shooting: 23.4.2010, public availability: 02.05.2010
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Madrid 41 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Madrid Cazadores Experiencia Bifrutas
- Claimed by: Martin LOYER (http://www.martinloyer.fr/en/)
- Photograph of: LyonLyonLyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... - Dimensions: 469751px (W) × 88112px (H)
- Pixels: 41,390,700,112
- Year: shooting: July 2011, public availability: 15.12.2011
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Saint-Raphaël 41 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Saint-Raphaël 41 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Gigapixel Tour (Guillaume Roumestan)
- Photograph of: Saint-Raphël
- Dimensions: 397488 px (W) × 103960px (H)
- Pixels: 41,322,852,480
- Year: shooting: 7.5.2011, public availability: 19.5.2011
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first multiviewpoint Gigapixel in the World 18 x 2,3 = 40 Gigapixel, 2011
- Name of project/picture: multiviewpoint Gigapixel image
- Claimed by: Daniel Richter (Website)
- Photograph of: Kyffhaeuser, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
- Dimensions: 18 x 85,232px (W) × 26,301px (H)
- Pixels: 18 x 2,241,686,832 = 40,350,362,976
- Year: shooting: 2011
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Swiss Alps 31 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Swiss Alps 31 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Simon Oberli
- Photograph of: Swiss Alps
- Dimensions: 385163px (W) × 80500px (H)
- Pixels: 31,005,621,500
- Year: shooting: 13.3.2010, public availability: 25.4.2010
Full size zoomable image
Paris 26 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Paris 26 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Kolor Autopano / Arnaud Frich / Martin Loyer
- Photograph of: ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and LyonLyonLyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... - Dimensions: 354159px (W) × 75570px (H)
- Pixels: 26,763,795,630
- Year: shooting: September 2009, public availability: March 2010
Full size zoomable image
Blog explaining the full process to create such an image
Paris 26 Gigapixels is an interactive image showing a view of the French capital and its famous monuments, from the Eiffel Tower to the Pantheon. It was shot by photographer Arnaud Frich using a custom-made panoramic head and 2 Canon 5D Mark II DSLR cameras with 300mm f4.0 lenses and two 2x tele converter (equivalent 600mm f8.0). The 2346 images of the project were then assembled using Kolor Autopano Giga software. The website was created using several technologies: Kolor Autopano Tour, KRpano and Microsoft Research's HDview.
Gigapixel Dresden 26 gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Gigapixel Dresden
- Claimed by: A.F.B. media GmbH / Sächsische Zeitung (local newspaper)
- Photograph from: Haus der Presse, DresdenDresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... - Dimensions: 297,500px (W) × 87,500px (H)
- Size: 102 GB (raw data)
- Pixels: 26,031,250,000
- Year: 2009
Full size zoomable image
Barcelona 21 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Barcelona Cazadores Experiencia Bifrutas
- Claimed by: Martin LOYER (http://www.martinloyer.fr/en/)
- Photograph of: LyonLyonLyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... - Dimensions: 390373px (W) × 55100px (H)
- Pixels: 21,509,552,300
- Year: shooting: summer 2011, public availability: 15.12.2011
Full size zoomable image
Carriere des Grands Caous 20 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Carrière des Grands Caous (Quarry of the "Grands Caous")
- Claimed by: Guillaume Roumestan (Website)
- Photograph of: Saint-RaphaelSaint-RaphaëlSaint-Raphaël can refer to the following French communes:* Saint-Raphaël, Dordogne, a French commune in the Dordogne département* Saint-Raphaël, Var, a French commune in the Var départementIt is also the name of:...
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... - Dimensions: 204,220px (W) × 102,391px (H)
- Pixels: 20,910,290,020
- Year: shooting: 2010
Full size zoomable image
Prague 18 Gigapixels Spherical Panorama
- Name of project/picture: Prague from the TV Tower - 18 Gigapixel Panoramic Photo
- Claimed by: Jeffrey Martin (360cities.net)
- Photograph of: PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czech RepublicCzech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest.... - Dimensions: 192,000px (W) × 96,000px (H)
- Size: 120GB (Photoshop file)
- Pixels: 18,432,000,000
- Year: shooting: October 2009, public availability: December 2009
Full size zoomable image
Blog explaining how the panorama was made
This image, when published in 12/2009, was the largest fully spherical panoramic photo in the world. It is 192,000 pixels wide and 96,000 pixels tall. When printed, it is 16 meters (53 feet) long at regular photographic quality (300dpi). It was shot in early October 2009 from the top of the Zizkov TV Tower in Prague, Czech Republic in collaboration with Prague 3 town hall. Canon 5D MKII digital SLR camera and a 200mm lens were used. Hundreds of shots were shot over a few hours; these shots were then stitched together on a computer over the following few weeks.
Vancouver's North Shore 18 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Vancouver's North Shore 18 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Ronnie Miranda (gigapixel.com)
- Photograph of: VancouverVancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, BC CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... - Dimensions: 299,980px (W) × 60,000px (H)
- Size: 54.2 GB
- Pixels: 17,998,800,000
- Year: shooting: July 6, 2011, public availability: August 20, 2011
Full size zoomable image
The image is the largest Canadian photo created as of August 20, 2011.
largest season image in the world - Ilmenau (Germany) 18 Gigaixel, 2009
- Name of project/picture: largest season photo in the world
- Claimed by: Daniel Richter (Website)
- Photograph of: IlmenauIlmenauIlmenau is a town located in the district of Ilm-Kreis, Thuringia, Germany.Ilmenau is situated in the valley of the Ilm river, at an altitude of 431 metres above sea level, and is the biggest town in Ilm-Kreis district, with 6,200 students studying at the Technische Universität Ilmenau. The...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... - Dimensions: 142,736px (W) × 125,546px (H)
- Pixels: 17,919,933,856
- Year: shooting: 2009
Full size zoomable image
Yosemite-17-Gigapixels/Glacier Point
- Name of project/picture: Yosemite-17-Gigapixels/Glacier Point
- Claimed by: Gerard Maynard, New York, NY, USA
- Photograph from: Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, CA, USA
- Dimensions: 214,414px (W) × 80,571px (H)
- Size: 96.5 GB
- Pixels: 17,275,550,394
- Year: 2008
Full size zoomable image
Megeve valley 16.71 Gigapixels (2009)
- Name of project/picture: Megeve Valley
- Claimed by: Guillaume Roumestan - France
- Photograph of: Megeve village and valley view from Rochebrune
- Dimensions: 217,452px (W) × 76,846px (H)
- Size: 71.6 GB
- Pixels: 16,710,316,392
- Year: 2009
Shot took place on February 20, 2009 on the terrace of the 1st floor of the restaurant "Le Super Megève ", located in Rochebrune, 1754 meters (Megève, Haute Savoie, France).
The panorama stretches in 180°, from left to right, from the Torraz (1930 metres) to the Aiguille du Midi (2487 meters). Are visible the village of Megève, the Aiguille du Midi, the Mont-Blanc...
Assemblage of 2321 pictures of 12 million pixels stitched into a picture of 16,71 billions pixels. (217452x76846 = 16,710,316,392 Pixels).
Full size zoomable image
Mount Lebanon Valley | LEBANON (2011)
- Name of project/picture: Mount Lebanon Valley
- Claimed by: Karim Saad
- Photograph of: Mount Lebanon Valley
- Dimensions: 234248 px (W) × 69352 px (H)
- Pixels: 16,245,567,296 (16,245 gigapixels)
- Year: shooting: 12.06.2011, public availability: 28.06.2011
Full size zoomable image
The Last Supper (2007)
- Name of project/picture: The Last Supper
- Claimed by: HAL9000 Srl - Novara - Italy
- Photograph of: Last Supper in the back halls of the dining hall at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy.The Last Supper (Leonardo)The Last Supper is a 15th century mural painting in Milan created by Leonardo da Vinci for his patron Duke Ludovico Sforza and his duchess Beatrice d'Este...
- Dimensions: 172,181px (W) × 93,611px (H)
- Size: 94.4 GB
- Pixels: 16,118,035,591
- Year: 2007
The 16.1 Gigapixel size was reached by HAL9000 Srl. The project "The Last Supper" was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, it is a stitched photograph created merging 1677 shots from a single point into one photograph, each shot 12.2 Megapixel in size.
The Last Supper - full size zoomable
Harlem 13 Gigapixels (2007)
- Name of project/picture: Harlem 13 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Gerard Maynard
- Photograph of: Harlem, New York
- Dimensions: 279,689px (W) × 46,901px (H)
- Size: 48.8 GB
- Pixels: 13,117,693,789
- Year: 2007
The 13 Gigapixel size was reached by Gerard Maynard.
The 2045 images were taken with a Nikon D2X with 300 mm lens mounted on a modified Peace River Studios PixOrb. The stitching and exporting was done automatically by Autopano Pro.
Full size zoomable image
Vancouver 12 Gigapixels
- Name of project/picture: Vancouver 12 Gigapixels
- Claimed by: Ronnie Miranda (gigapixel.com)
- Photograph of: VancouverVancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, BC CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... - Dimensions: 242,230px (W) × 41,300px (H)
- Size: 33.2 GB
- Pixels: 12,427,953,252
- Year: shooting: April 10 and May 8, 2010, public availability: June 3, 2010
Full size zoomable image
Full size zoomable image, gigapan.org
Parete Gaudenziana (2006)
- Name of project/picture: Parete Gaudenziana
- Claimed by: HAL9000 Srl - Novara - Italy
- Photograph of: Parete Gaudenziana in Santa Maria delle Grazie Church in Varallo (Italy)
- Dimensions: 96,679px (W) × 89,000px (H)
- Size: 51.6 GB
- Pixels: 8,604,431,000
- Year: 2006
The 8.6 Gigapixel size was reached by HAL9000 Srl.
The project Parete Gaudenziana was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, it is a stitched photograph created merging 1145 shots from a single point into one photograph, each shot 12.2 Megapixel big.
A story of the picture has been published by Rob Galbraith.
Gigapix (2004)
- Name of project/picture: Gigapix
- Claimed by: TNONetherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific ResearchNederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek or TNO is a not-for-profit organization in the Netherlands that focuses on applied science. The main office of TNO is located in Delft...
- Photograph of: DelftDelftDelft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
, NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... - Dimensions: 78,797px (W) × 31,565px (H)
- Size: 7.5GB
- Pixels: 2,487,227,305
- Year: 2004
The previous record belonged to Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek or TNO is a not-for-profit organization in the Netherlands that focuses on applied science. The main office of TNO is located in Delft...
.
One of these attempts was by Dutch company TNO. The project dubbed "Gigapix" was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, although it is a stitched photograph by merging hundreds of small sections into one photograph. According to an article in The Register and a Slashdot story, the photograph is 78,797 by 31,565 pixels large. It was taken on a Nikon
Nikon
, also known as just Nikon, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication, of which...
D1X camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
.
A preview of the image can be seen at:
Unknown title (2003)
- Name of project/picture: Unknown
- Claimed by: Max Lyons, Gigapixel Images
- Photograph of: Bryce CanyonBryce Canyon National ParkBryce Canyon National Park is a national park located in southwestern Utah in the United States. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon which, despite its name, is not a canyon but a giant natural amphitheater created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau...
, UtahUtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, USA - Dimensions: 40,784px (W) × 26,800px (H)
- Size: 2.06GB
- Pixels: 1,093,011,200
- Year: 2003
The previous record belonged to Max Lyons of Gigapixel Images. He had at one stage claimed to have created the largest photo. It consisted of 196 images that were stitched together. Since then this claim has been surpassed by that of the TNO attempt. TNO's Gigapix is 2.5 times larger.
Portrait of a Coral Reef (1999)
- Name of project/picture: Portrait of a Coral Reef
- Claimed by: Jim Hellemn
- Photograph of: Bloody Bay Wall Coral Reef in Cayman Islands
- Dimensions: 76,934px (W) × 23,010px (H)
- Size: 4.95GB
- Pixels: 1,770,251,340
- Year: 1999
The previous record may have belonged to Jim Hellemn of Blue Ocean Art. In 1999, Hellemn created a 1.77 gigapixel underwater photocomposite image, which was designed to facilitate life-size reproduction of a 20 ft high by 70 ft wide section of Bloody Bay Wall, a vertical coral reef wall in the Cayman Islands. The image consisted of over 300 images that were manually stitched together from 4000ppi drum scans of Fuji Provia 100 transparency film. To make the image, a grid of 280 frames was photographed with 30% overlap to accurately cover the reef wall with full-spectrum light revealing the natural color and detail of the reef. Additional frames of marine life carefully photographed in the same grid composited in place to complete the scene. The on-site photography, requiring 23 dives and over 12 hours underwater to complete, was accomplished over a ten day period by Jim Hellemn, with assistants Larry Hellemn and Peter Neubauer, using a neutrally-buoyant camera platform Hellemn designed specifically for the project. The post production of the image was completed in six months using multiple Macintosh G4 computers at Photographix in Poway, California, a digital graphics company owned by Hellemn.
A zoomable version of the image was made available to the public in 2000 using the ER Mapper's ECW (file format)
ECW (file format)
ECW is a proprietary wavelet compression image format optimized for aerial and satellite imagery. It was developed by Earth Resource Mapping, and is now owned by ERDAS, which is owned by Intergraph...
and Image Web Server software on a site operated by Fugro-Pelagos, allowing visitors to explore the life-size image. The project and the techniques used by Hellemn inspired researchers at Miami university to use similar methods to produce wide-coverage video mosaics to study coral reefs. RSMAS. 2006 Annual Report The image was published in the October 2001 issue of National Geographic Magazine, "Portrait of a Coral Reef".
A preview of the image can be seen at:
External links
- BBC BBC report on TNO image
- Everything GigaPixel
- CNET News.com CNET report on TNO image
- The gigapixel project
- Wired News Photo in Calif. could be world's largest
- Popular Science The Sharpest Image - Story on the Gigapxl project
- Clifford Ross and his R1 Camera
- Portrait of a Coral reef
- GigaPan Project - capture, stitch, and present gigapixel imagery.
- Querdenker Gigapixel projects - new innovations and lots of images