Posts Tagged ‘high resolution images’
Apocrypha In Your Browser: Google Is Putting The Dead Sea Scrolls Online
The keepers of the scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority, announced Tuesday that as part of their 20th anniversary, they are launching this project to digitize all of the 30,000 fragments that make up the earliest known copy of the Hebrew Bible. Taking a page out of the PopSci handbook, the IAA is entrusting Google with the task of preserving their sacred, prophetic treasures. This is the first time since the 1950s that the entire collection will be photographed.
U.S. company MegaVision developed the high-resolution imaging technology that is to be used on the project. According to the IAA, the resulting images will be just as good as looking at the scrolls themselves. This will allow not only widespread access to the collection, but also minimize the need to expose the delicate 2,000-year-old parchment and papyrus to the harsh effects of light and air.
Once the project is complete, researching the scrolls will be easier than ever. Google Israel and the IAA plan to include transcriptions, translations and a bibliography with the images so you won’t have to be an expert, or even able to read Aramaic in order to decipher the scrolls.
Zoomable 45-Gigapixel Panorama of Dubai Sets Record as World’s Largest Digital Photo
The shot was captured over more than three hours using a Canon 7D mounted to a robotic GigaPan camera mount that uses imaging technology similar to that found on NASA's Mars rovers. The sweeping shot is actually 4,250 individual shots cobbled together seamlessly with Autopano stitching software.
Said Donovan: "This was intended as a technical test. It was about exploring the limits of the hardware and software out there."
Which raises the question: Did we find the limit? The last record-holding digital panorama came in at 26 gigapixels, so the Dubai image is a significant advance. Given the fact that the image is composite, it's really not a matter of camera hardware; the robotic mount and the camera could, theoretically, snap more than 4,250 individual shots of a landscape. So it's really a matter of software and the processing power needed to stitch together the larger images. Which means that if the tools to make a larger digital pic don't exist yet, they certainly will at some point.
And what good is a record if it's never broken? In the meantime, check out an interactive version of the image on . If you think the image above looks like any other panorama, zoom in. And zoom in some more. If this is the closest you ever get to Dubai, it's still really, really close.