GigaPan is the newest development of the Global Connection Project, which aims to help us meet our neighbors across the globe, and learn about our planet itself. GigaPan will help bring distant communities and peoples together through images that have so much detail that they are, themselves, the objects of exploration, discovery and wonder. We believe that enabling people to explore, experience, and share each other's worlds can be a transforming experience. Our mission is to make all aspects of the GigaPan experience accessible and affordable to the broadest possible community.
GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community.
In addition to the individual user community, we have are working with a number of partners, including The World (BBC/WGBH), and projects like the Pennsylvania Civil War Trails. Stay tuned for announcements about several other professional and educational applications of GigaPan which are currently in development. We hope to disseminate the GigaPan technology as broadly as possible for cultural and environmental understanding and for education.
The GigaPan team is both diverse and large. Here we recognize the institutions that comprise our core team.
- Carnegie Mellon University
- NASA/Ames Research Center
- Google Corporation - Financial support for the Global Connection Project
- GigaPan Systems - GigaPan robot design and production
- DeepLocal, Inc. - Website design and production
GigaPan has been sponsored by Google, CMU and the NASA/Ames Intelligent Robotics Group. GigaPan is part of the Global Connection Project at Carnegie Mellon University. The Fine Family Foundation has provided gift funding enabling the Gigapan system to be used by scientists internationally for exploration, discovery and documentation.
GigaPan Capture
We are pleased to announce that large-scale production of the GigaPanTM robotic camera mount is underway. The GigaPanTM robotic camera mount is capable of capturing multi-gigapixel, explorable panoramas with many compact digital cameras. The GigaPanTM robotic camera mount is manufactured and sold by GigaPan Systems.
To further our mission to make gigapixel imaging ubiquitous, we also plan to post an 'open source' reference design for the GigaPan device for hobbyists who wish to build their own robotic pan-tilt device.
GigaPan Software
GigaPan Uploader is a free software tool designed to prepare a panorama for gigapan.org and upload it to our servers. The uploader works with panoramas from any source, whether or not taken with an actual GigaPan device. We plan to release the uploader tool at the beginning of August.
GigaPan Stitcher is a free, easy-to-use application which assembles the hundreds (or thousands) of pictures taken by the GigaPan device into a single, very large panoramic image with minimal assistance from the user. Alternatively, existing free or professional stitching tools may be used. We plan to release GigaPan Stitcher at the same time as the commercial GigaPan device.