Paris 26 gigapixels

Here is a foretaste of the Paris 26 Gigapixels image! Feel free to spread the info

A HD version is also available on Youtube.

To access the big version of the preview, click on the image.

We are proud to reveal a preview image of the Paris 26 Gigapixels project. On this preview, you can see that nearly all famous monuments of Paris are present, from the Eiffel tower to the Panthéon. The thumbnails show details of the Eiffel tower, the Grand Palais and Notre Dame de Paris church.

The stitching of the 2346 individual photos (17 rows of 138 photos) was made in November using Autopano Giga and resulted in a giant image of 26.7 gigapixels: this is about 27 billion pixels! We first decided to keep the original name of the project, which was “Paris 20 Gigapixels”, but it made confusion with regard to the actual resolution of the image. This is why we now talk about the Paris 26 Gigapixels project.

So, what’s next? We are currently creating the web interface to display this giant panorama, with nice features to make the image pleasant to visit. We expect the site to be ready in a few weeks. More info to come in a few days about Paris 26 Gigapixels…

Kolor is glad to learn that a new gigapixel image was brought online: Dresden 26 Gigapixels. As for the Paris project, this image was stitched using our software Autopano.

Our aim with Autopano is to show that high-resolution photography is now within about anyone’s reach. We hope that many such projects will come out in the future, as the number of applications of gigapixel imagery is very large.

Paris 20 Gigapixels was stitched in November and is actually 26.7 gigapixels, which still makes it the world’s largest panoramic image. However, other gigapixel images will certainly beat this record in the near future, thus it becomes more and more important to concentrate on the artistic aspect of this kind of projects. A good example of this is the image of Feldkirch, also created -and sponsored- by Autopano, that mixes gigapixel photography with embedded 360 virtual tours and localized 3D sounds.

These images put high the artistic level we have to reach with our Paris image. This is why the current phase (embedding of interactive objects and creation of the website) should take several weeks. We want the final image to be amazing!

Intel wrote a case study about the Paris 26 Gigapixels project and the way Kolor used Intel hardware to stitch the image. You can read the report by clicking on the image below.

After the shooting that took place on September 8th, photographer Arnaud Frich developed the RAW files and Kolor is now stitching them. Thanks to its partnership with Intel, Kolor relies on the performance capabilities of Intel® Server System 2600UR and Intel® Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series for the image processing of the Paris 20 Gigapixels project!

Next steps: validation of the stitching, editing, creation of the website.

First of all we would like to thank all those who took part in this project. It took more than one year to get the perfect day: not too hot, not too cold, not too cloudy, not too windy and the most important the right light.

We “climbed” on the top of St Sulpice tower around 9am and we left it at 5pm. So what happened during these 8 hours? We will reveal all the details about the problems we got during the shooting , the stitching and some anecdotes at the end of this adventure. This project already became an adventure for sure ….

We will give you more details about the technical aspects when the panorama will be stitched.

In the meantime enjoy the pictures of that beautiful day.

Shooting day on September 8th, 2009.

Kolor and photographer Arnaud Frich intend to create one of the biggest panoramic image of the world: Paris 20 Gigapixels. This project was announced a few months ago.

Technically, everything is ready to shoot the 2000 images needed to create such a panorama. We are only waiting for the weather. As the event needs to meet all partners’ agendas, the project can only be undertaken during a week-end. All week-ends of November and December were cloudy or rainy in Paris, thus the project is postponed to the next sunny week-end.

As a reminder, Paris 20 Gigapixels will be shot from one of the towers of St Sulpice church, where the viewpoint covers nearly all interesting monuments of Paris.

A profesional filming team from Alter Persona Films agency will cover the event. They already sent us some images of the spotting they did in November :

On the way to the tower roof:

Preview of Paris 20 Gigapixels image:

Arnaud Frich and Kolor tested the panoramic head that will be used to shoot Paris 20 Gigapixels.

Paris 20 Gigapixels will be a stitching of more than 2000 individual photos. The image will be visible on its own website and anyone will be able to zoom in the minor details of the French capital.

The panoramic head was designed specifically for this project. It enables the mounting of 2 SLR cameras so that the shooting will be twice as fast and thus the lightness variations will be minimized.

For the final image, 2 Canon 1DS Mark III will be used, each one with either a 100/400 mm, f/4.5-5.6 lens or a 400mm f/5.6L lens from Canon.

Arnaud Frich and Kolor were awarded last week the 2008 Photo Innovation prize by French telecommunications company SFR (Vivendi), during the international photo meeting of Arles (France).

This prize rewards the project ‘Paris 20 Gigapixels’ that photographer Arnaud Frich and Kolor are planning to undertake this summer. Paris 20 Gigapixels will be world’s biggest assembled panoramic image, with more than 2000 individual photos stitched together.

Here is a presentation video from SFR (in French):