Panorama of Tokyo, 180 gigapixel photograph

Photography group 360Cities have been busy trying to capture every major city in the world with as much detail as they can. They recently did a stunning panorama of London which we featured. Their latest project was TOKYO, measuring a staggering 180 gigapixels in size.

Last September, the team run by Jeffrey Martin spent two days on the roof of the Tokyo Tower's lower observation desk to shoot 10,000 individual images to complete the finished panorama. They used a Canon 7D SLR, fitted with a Canon 400mm f5.6L lens. The camera was fitted to a Clauss Rodeon VR Head ST robotic panorama rig and was moved between three spots on the tower. It was programmed to automatically capture the complete 360 view.

The project was sponsored by Fujisu Technology Solutions and they supplied the monster Celsius R920 workstation system that pieced together the pieces of the final image. The system had 12 cores and 192 GB of memory, but it still took 12 weeks to process the image, plus more time to convert it all into an interactive panorama for online viewing.

While this image falls short of the world record of 320 Gigapixels, it is the largest image of Tokyo ever made. The image measures 600,000 x 300,000 pixels, which would produce a photograph 328ft wide and 164 ft tall, if it was printed at the photographic resolution. The image shows structures and content up to 18 miles away. The detail really is incredible, with the user able to read number plates and see people clearly in the street miles away.

You can view this remarkable image on their website, over here.

Kitguru says: Incredible work!

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