Kolor: Image-stitching & virtual tour solutions » In the field

New York 360 with Panotour Pro, by Nuno Madeira

yannL — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:24:39 +0000

Nuno Madeira, a Portuguese Photographer, invites us to visit New York. He has just published a virtual tour that integrates multiple panoramas! You can though look over all famous places like Time Square, Soho, Central Park, the Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, West Village and so on.

He discovered New York in 2010, and got a love at first sight. Today he wants to share his love for the city through his work.

Technically speaking, he used a Canon 1000D and a 10-17 Tokina lens, without a tripod. Each panorama is composed of 9 to 15 photos. This project required 3 years of work and has been relayed on National Geographic Portugal and Petapixel.

The virtual tour has been made with Panotour Pro 1.8. Nuno created his own themes and brought his personal touch so that the virtual tour looks like no other.

Nuno is 33 year old 360 photographer/Architect/Web-designer, you can look his work on his personal and professional website.

Don’t forget that Panotour 2 will be available soon, go there for the latest news!

10 pictures that break pixel number records

philippe — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:09:46 +0000

Tom’s Guide, online magazine in IT field, underlines that with the advent of hi-tech digital cameras and professional gear (such as Gigapan Epic Pro), powerful lenses, ultra powered computers and advanced image processing technologies, now it’s possible for professional photographers to shoot pictures in great detail.

The Inauguration of President Barack Obama shot with Gigapan Epic Pro

A Gigapixel image is a digital image bitmap composed of one billion pixels, more than 200 times better than my mobile phone’s 5 MP camera! Here are some pictures stitched by Kolor Autopano Giga:

Paris 26 Gigapixels

London 320 Gigapixels

Budapest 70 Gigapixels

Have a look on 7 other gigapixels images on Tom’s Guide website (in French). We recommend you to use Firefox internet browser to visit the website.

Get more information about Autopano Giga

An exclusive 360° view of the high drama of an operation on a six-month-old baby. All’s well that ends well..

philippe — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:09:31 +0000

On its website, Blick.ch tells us a nice story… A six-month-old baby’s heart has stopped. As Dr Michael Hubler (right) and his team repair a hole in Fabrizio’s heart, the boy is kept alive in the 90-minute procedure by the heart-lung machine behind the surgeon at the Children’s Hospital in Zurich pumping blood into his body.

An operation on a six-month-old baby

Dominik Baumann worked since last fall to get a permission for doing this panoramashooting. He had to wear clothes like the doctor to be sterile and was not allowed to come closer than 1 meter to the surgery table. Thanks to Panotour Pro, Dominik added hotspots to explain important steps & functions of each person during a heart surgery. This tour was published in Blick.ch’s website as well on the iPad App of Blick.

Each person has a crucial job

Happily, the operation has been a great success. A week after this picture was taken, Fabrizio was able to leave hospital with his mother. All’s well that ends well…

Doctor's delight for his patient next day

If you want to read the full story, visit Blick.ch

Learn more about Panotour Pro (virtual tour software)

Peter West Carey explains how easy it is to create a gigapixel photography using Autopano Giga and a Gigapan Epic Pro

yannL — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:51:34 +0000

Peter West Carey has just published a tutorial on Digital Photgraphy School to explain how easy the creation of a gigapixel photography is with Autopano Giga stitching software and Gigapan Epic Pro motorized head.

From the shooting to the final stitching, Peter West Carey shows us every necessary steps for making this panorama composed of 98 pictures that you can see above:

Autopano Giga has an import module especially dedicated to Gigapan motorized heads. This module allows to detect the settings of your shooting with the Gigapan.

The Shooting has been made with a Canon 7D and a 28-300 mm lens. The panorama is composed of 98 images shot in manual mode, ISO 100, 135mm, f/9, 1/400.

According to Peter, “Utilizing AutoPano Giga to produce stunning panoramas shot with Gigapan’s heads is fairly simple.”

Read the tutorial

Learn more about Peter West Carey

Get more information about Autopano Giga 3 and Gigapan Epic Pro.

Gigapan Epic Pro (robotic camera mount) & Kolor Autopano Giga (image stitching software), gathered for a beautiful gigapixel fine art reproduction of Jesus!

philippe — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:15:09 +0000

3 billion pixels, 12 hours shooting & 6 months work, here are figures for this fantastic gigapixel fine art reproduction of Jesus in Krakow-Lagiewniki (Poland), painted by Adolf Hyła in 1934. Kolor put at your disposal case studie which will tell you how to reproduce a painting or artwork with very high resolution and perfect image stitching.

Gigapixel fine art reproduction of Jesus, in Krakow-Lagiewniki (Poland)

The shooting was made by Peter Tumidajski & used Gigapan Epic Pro (robotic camera mount), Autopano Giga (image stitching software), EOS 1Ds mark II, Canon 300mm 2.8 ISx 1,4 TC II, OSRAM continue light system with specialised and UV filter, tripod Manfrotto 161Mk2, 120 GB RAW data, MacBook Pro, 8GB RAM. Gigapan Epic Pro is also at the origin of various gigapixels projects such as: Machu Picchu 16 Gigapixels, President Barack Obama’s Inaugural, or a A 14 metre print of the centre of Leicester.

Gigapan Epic Pro used to shoot the gigapixel fine art reproduction of Jesus, in Krakow-Lagiewniki (Poland)

The final picture reached 3 billion of pixel (real resolution is about 700DPI) thanks to 1200 shots stitched with Autopano Giga.

Autopano Giga used to stitch the gigapixel fine art reproduction of Jesus, in Krakow-Lagiewniki (Poland)

Congratulations to Peter for this fantastic result which was a non profit project! Here are pictures from behind the scene:

Gigapixel fine art reproduction of Jesus, in Krakow-Lagiewniki (Poland)

Learn more about Peter’s projects

Get more information about Gigapan Epic Pro & discover other gigapixels made with this gear such as: Machu Picchu 16 Gigapixels, President Barack Obama’s Inaugural, or a A 14 metre print of the centre of Leicester.

Download & try Autopano Giga 3

Kolor technology strikes again & breaks the world record! Discover the 320-gigapixel panorama of London shot by Jeffrey Martin (BT Tower, 360cities)

philippe — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:31:13 +0000

Record-breaking 320-gigapixel panorama of London

An amazing image of London taken from the top of the BT Tower has set a new record for the world’s largest panoramic photo. The final image, made up from nearly 48,000 individual photos stitched together with the help of Autopano Giga software from Kolor, shows a full 360 degree view of London in incredible detail. If printed at normal resolution, the photo would be 98 meters long (323 feet) and 23 meters high (77 feet) – almost as big as Buckingham Palace.

Record-breaking 320-gigapixel panorama of London

The 320 gigapixel panorama was photographed by Jeffrey Martin, Holger Schulze and Tom Mills (from expert panoramic photography firm 360Cities.net) and then subsequently created by Jeffrey Martin.

Photographers: Jeffrey Martin, Holger Schulze and Tom Mills

Project by numbers:

• 320 – the number of gigapixels in the photo

• 48,640 – the number of individual images shot

• 3 – the number of days it took to shoot all the individual photos

• 3 – the number of months over which the computer processed the final result

• 60,000 – times bigger than an iPhone 4 photo

• 98 – the number of meters long if printed in normal photographic resolution

• 24 – the number of meters high if printed in normal photographic resolution

• 29th – the floor at the BT Tower where the photos were taken

• 20 – number of miles distant to the viewable horizon

This screenshot taken from Autopano Giga software, represents only a quarter of the final image

Technical photographic information and how the photo was taken:

• Working over a period of three chilly days in 2012, the 360Cities team spent hours on the 29th floor outdoor platform of the BT Tower working with four cameras to record the 48,640 images comprising the panorama.

• Four Canon EOS 7D cameras with EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM lenses and Extender EF 2x III teleconverters were mounted on Clauss company Rodeon VR Head ST robotic panorama heads and positioned in four secure locations around the 29th floor platform.

• The Clauss company robotic panorama heads are capable of 72,000 steps in a single 360 degree arc, and in this case were set to fire four frames a second.

• Laptops monitored a live preview of the progress of the shoot, which was accomplished in the teeth of sub-freezing temperatures and occasional 50 mph winds high above London.

• The 360Cities photography team of Jeffrey Martin, Tom Mills and Holger Schulze ensured that not a single individual frame from the more than 48,000 planned was missed.

• The raw images were then processed over a multi-week period using Fujitsu Technology Solutions’ Celsius R920 workstation with 256GB of RAM and 16 cores at 3.1GHz, and Autopano Giga panorama stitching software from Kolor.

• The resulting online interactive version of the photo is presented in multi-layered, tiled resolution that permits zooming in to view extreme details, and is composed of millions of individual image tiles.

The image shows a full 360 degree view of London in incredible detail

Learn more about the London panorama

Download & try Autopano Giga 3

Video stitching: Kolor solutions in backstage of the Beck 360 video

Rami — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:26:34 +0000

Beck recently performed David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” song on a circular stage surrounded by over 170 musicians: this was a perfect occasion to create a 360-degree video experience. Kolor video-stitching solutions (currently in development) have been used to assemble the video streams together resulting in 3 single 360×180° videos.

Enjoy the experience! You can choose between 3 points of view, move in all directions while playing the video and even use your webcam to control it by moving your head left, right, up and down.

On Wired, Beck said: “The perspective you have watching it in 360 and the way you move around is probably similar to how a player in a videogame moves around the space. (…) But in this you’re obviously moving around a real space. It’s sort of imposing the way you navigate in a videogame into a real-life experience.”

Kolor video stitching solutions are coming soon: register to be the first to be informed!

Kolor will be offering soon an easy-to-use solution to record, stitch and publish 360-degree videos. Would you like to receive information about this upcoming solution? Please fill in the form to receive our news updates about Kolor’s 360-degree video solution.

Lyon 77 Gigapixels: France’s largest photo is now available online!

Rami — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:19:09 +0000

The largest photograph in France has just been released online and anyone can zoom in, zoom out and pan over the image. This 77-gigapixel panorama of the city of Lyon is made up from nearly 4,000 individual photos stitched together with the help of Autopano Giga software from Kolor.

The photographers (De Graaf Photographes) have hidden 7 Easter eggs in the panorama, 5 of them are related to the history of Lyon. The visitor can therefore spend some time finding the surprises and discovering the famous monuments of the 3rd biggest city in France, such as the Fourviere basilica (19th century), the Saint-Jean Cathedral (15th century) or the historical courthouse (19th century).

The shooting took place during the winter; the same panorama will be created over the 3 other seasons.

Download the press release

The stitching in Autopano Giga 3

The 3956 photos composing the panorama have been imported via the VR Drive II module of Autopano Giga.

The stitching has last 20 hours on a Mac equipped with an Intel I7 processor (2x 4 cores) of 3.6Ghz, with 36Gb of RAM, a 400Gb SSD drive (raid 0) and a 3 Tb drive (raid 0).

The .kro file exported from Autopano Giga weighted 360Gb. Quite a nice size.

Zoom on Lyon

Monolation, a gorgeous landscape Time-lapse created over 1 Year and with 17,000 Photos!!

philippe — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:57:23 +0000

Jess Dunlap, professional photographer, spent all of 2012 creating the 4-minute time-lapse video above containing over 17.000 photos, titled Monolation. Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Convict Lake, June Lake, Mono Lake, Simi Valley, and Owens Valley are locations shown in the time lapse video.

In terms of gear, Jess Dunlap used a motorized panoramic head, the same type of Panogear & a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 for the vast majority of shots seen in the video.

Credit Photo: Jess Dunlap

Congratulations for this wonderful & fantastic work!

A 360 degree panoramic view from Dubai – Is this the greatest image on Earth?

philippe — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:55:41 +0000

Here is a 360 degree panoramic view from the very top of the tallest building on earth, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. The giddying image shows the view across the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from 828 meters above sea level captured in high resolution using some of the most advanced techniques in digital photography.

Dubai based photographer Gerald Donovan created the shot using a mechanized panoramic tripod head to take a series of 48 panoramic images, each shot at a resolution of 80 megapixels. These were then stitched together with manually shot images to ‘fill-in’ gaps caused by equipment installed at the top of the tower such as the lightning conductor and aircraft beacons. The result is an image that can be zoomed, tilted and rotated, giving viewers a sense of how it must feel to sit atop the world’s highest building.