Gigapan

Gigapan is an amazing panoramic camera system that takes wide angle views but in amazing detail. The idea behind it is quite simple. Take lots of images at the cameras maximum optical zoom and paste them together to make a wide angle image that can be explored in great detail by zooming into the image.

GigaPan was developed by Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, with support from Google. That is a pretty impressive pedigree!

The clever bits are the robotic tripod head that enables many overlapping images to be taken and the software from NASA that stitches them together. The web site is special too in that it supports the gigapan images and enables people to zoom in and explore. When linked to Google Earth, it is possible to fly to the spot where the image was taken, rotate through 90 degrees and seamlessly change into the gigapan landscape.

Finally, the web site also supports snapshots of the Gigapan images along with text so that it is possible to explore the image through the expert guidance of others or even make your own snapshots and comments about what you see.

The Jurassic Coast Team is using Gigapan to help interpret the coast but also as a monitoring tool to capture change and site condition. It is also possible to photograph entire museum displays and explore them as if you were there. A lot more work has to be done before Gigapan is fully integrated into the Jurassic Coast web site but in the mean time it is possible to get lost in a wealth of images from around the world and that are constantly being updated and added too.

The Jurassic Coast Team would like to acknowledge the support provided by the Fine Family Foundation in introducing Gigapan to the Dorset and East Devon coast.