Our First Gigapan Photo!
A zoomed-out version of our Gigapan (the full version can be found at http://gigapan.org/gigapans/34377/)
The concept behind the Gigapan is that a robot (given some prior information) automatically takes many successive megapixel-sized photos and software stitches them together into one giant (sometimes gigapixel-sized, hence the name) photo. After getting six AA batteries for our new Gigapan Epic100, we have finally taken our first hi-res photo of an insect drawer - albeit with the glass still on and of Scarabaeidae (BOOOOO, BEETLES!!).
This technology has been used mostly to take large panoramas with a high degree of zoom. One particularly famous example is a panorama of President Obama's inauguration that you can zoom to see individual's faces within the crowd. We are planning to image many of the insect drawers from the museum, enabling people to view specimens and label information from the comfort of their own computer.
Now we just need to get the stitcher to work faster, make a permanent fixture for mounting the Gigapan and decide/configure the camera that we want to use.....
Nice!
What kind of camera did you use?
Posted by Rindis on October 14, 2009 at 05:54 AM EDT #
We used a Canon PowerShot SD1000. It is a small point-and-shoot that takes 7.1 megapixel photos. The Gigapan EPIC100 is compatible with most point-and-shoots and some DSLRs.The lack of resolution is probably due to the glass still being on the box. We are going to attempt to use my Nikon D90 DSLR soon to see how that works, too.
Posted by MattB on October 14, 2009 at 08:50 AM EDT #
Working link: http://www.gigapansystems.com/compatible-cameras.html
Posted by MattB on October 14, 2009 at 08:52 AM EDT #
Pretty cool--most flies are packed in more than that though--how do you think it will do for the Diptera collections?
Posted by GailK on October 15, 2009 at 09:11 PM EDT #
It's hard to say, Gail. To get more detail you could take more photos, increasing the overall pixel size of the final gigapan. When we get it up and running we will surely take photos of drawers that are different than this test one. We'll see how it goes...
Posted by MattB on October 19, 2009 at 02:44 PM EDT #
Great stuff, but that beetle comment was really uncalled for :)
Posted by Beetles in the Bush on November 07, 2009 at 07:00 PM EST #