Creating and Exploring Big Wide Images

[Learning 2.008 Conference]

A fascinating to explore the world is via panoramic photos.

We will find a wide open place and learn first hand how a special robot camera control device, the GigaPan can take very large high resolution panoramic images with a consumer grade digital camera.

Even if you do not have such a device, the Gigapan.org web site has an amazing collection of images where you can pan and zoom to see large amounts of detail in a complex scene. We'll share some ideas how exploration activities can be built around this web site, and other such as 360 Cities, Panoramio, that geolocate images on a map.

Presenter: Alan Levine
Room: Tent/Court Yard Depending on weather

[Alan Levine]

I'm prepared to both demo examples of the Gigapan imagery and/or do an actual photo capture. I have made 2 images so far in Shanghai:

Pudong View http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=9189

Nanking Street http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=9161

I was going to make a wikispaces page with resources for this session, but the #$%ing slow network at the hotel is making it impossible, so below are some related resources:

Creating and Exploring Big Wide Images
A fascinating way to explore the world is via panoramic photos. We will find a wide open place and learn first hand how a special robot camera control device, the GigaPan can take very large high resolution panoramic images with a consumer grade digital camera. Even if you do not have such a device, the Gigapan.org web site has an amazing collection of images where you can pan and zoom to see large amounts of detail in a complex scene. We'll share some ideas how exploration activities can be built around this web site, and other such as 360 Cities, Panoramio, that geolocate images on a map.

GigaPan
"GigaPan is the newest development of the Global Connection Project, which aims to help us meet our neighbors across the globe, and learn about our planet itself. GigaPan will help bring distant communities and peoples together through images that have so much detail that they are, themselves, the objects of exploration, discovery and wonder. We believe that enabling people to explore, experience, and share each other's worlds can be a transforming experience. Our mission is to make all aspects of the GigaPan experience accessible and affordable to the broadest possible community."
http://www.gigapan.org/about.php

"The Gigapan camera is a simple robotic platform for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images from a standard digital camera. Sponsored by Google, Carnegie Mellon University and the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, the Global Connection Project has also developed software which places you inside the panorama and lets you explore. An earlier version of this imaging technology was developed for the Mars Exploration Rovers; the panoramas created from Mars enabled a simulated experience of being on another planet. The Gigapan project aims to create a similar experience, but for exploration of Earth."
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~globalconn/gigapan.html

The GigaPan robotic camera mount is capable of capturing multi-gigapixel, explorable panoramas with most off-the-shelf digital cameras.

Examples
Guatemala Market (detail of busy scene)
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=5

Hanauma Bay (very high resolution image)
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=5322

Petroglyph (idea for exploring a real world object in detail)
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=4139

Burning Man 2006 Waffle (art works)
http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=70

Dublin Castle (study architecture)
http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=71

Road Cut near Wilson Lake (Geology activity)
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=2575
a roadcut in shales south of Wilson Lake, Kansas. Can you identify it's proper place in the stratigraphy (http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Publications/Bulletins/189/09_meso.html#CRET) of the region?

More Geology
http://www.gigapan.org/searchGigapansList.php?keywords=geology

Machu Piccu (explore ancient spaces)
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=1758

Nave of Wells Cathedral (art history)
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=7822
Full panoramic scene viewable in Google Earth
http://www.gigapan.org/exportGigapan.php?id=7822

Meeting Notes
On May 6-7, 2008 UPCLOSE ran a two-day CAISE Inquiry Group on the topic of how to conceptualize and evaluate successful professional online learning communities, especially those serving the multidisciplinary field of informal science education (ISE).
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=5035

Alan's GigaPans
http://www.gigapan.org/viewProfile.php?userid=5381

GigaPan Set up Tutorial (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNIvJlx0E4U&feature=related

AutoStitch
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

Alan's Autostiched Images
http://flickr.com/search/?q=autostitch&w=37996646802@N01&m=...

360 Cities
http://www.360cities.net/

Panoramio
http://www.panoramio.com/

[Alan Levine]

Thanks for my crew who posed for the GigaPan image captured in the courtyard. It is still stitching (180 photos, most ever for me), but I should have it uploaded by morning with a link. Here is a peek of it in the stitching mode.

[Alan Levine]

Whew! It took more than 14 hours at the hotel to upload! The final images can be viewed now at

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=9253

Thanks to my eager group of participants who moved to different places in the same scene.