Get Ready for Gigapixels

[M II A II R II K]

Get Ready for Gigapixels


20 June 2012

By Sid Perkins

Read More: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...-for-giga.html

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Researchers have developed a prototype "supercamera" that stitches together images from 98 individual cameras (each with a 14-megapixel sensor) to create a 960-million-pixel image with enough resolution to spot a 3.8-centimeter-wide object 1 kilometer away.

- Applied to a 120°-wide, near-fisheye view of the Seattle skyline (main image), the 93-kilogram camera captured enough detail to read the fine print on signs as much as two blocks away. The camera's optics occupy only 3% of the volume of its 75-centimeter-by-75-centimeter-by-50- centimeter frame—a size needed both to contain the camera's circuit boards and to keep them from overheating, the researchers report online today in Nature.

While other camera systems can generate gigapixel-and-larger images, those composite views are stitched together from individual images taken sequentially with one camera as it is panned across the scene; the new system takes all 98 images simultaneously, providing a "stop action" view of a scene. Future, more compact versions could inaugurate the era of handheld gigapixel photography.

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