Forum to Explore Gigapixel Imaging

Scientists who are pioneering the use of gigapixel imagery will discuss how they are leveraging this new technology Nov. 11-13 at the first Fine International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging for Science, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

The conference, sponsored by the Fine Foundation of Pittsburgh, will focus on new technologies for producing electronic images that contain billions of pixels and can be studied interactively in great detail. The deadline for early conference registration is Sept. 13.

Keynote speakers Alan Eustace, Google senior vice president for engineering; Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center; and Mark Bauman, executive vice president of National Geographic Television, will discuss the scientific uses of gigapixel imagery, as well as its potential for educating students and the general public about science. The technology already is being used to create images of everything from a large archaeological dig to a microscopic image of a fly.

For the past three years, the Fine Foundation has sponsored a series of workshops that have trained more than 100 scientists from around the world on the use of one particular imaging system, called GigaPan. Geologists, primatologists, paleontologists, ecologists and scientists from many other disciplines have participated in these workshops and have become pioneers and innovators in the use of gigapixel imagery. Many will be returning to CMU to share their experiences at the November conference.

GigaPan, a combination of a robotic camera mount and a software package, was developed by CMU associate professor of robotics Illah Nourbakhsh’s CREATE Lab and the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, with support from Google. The system can take hundreds of photos of a given scene and then electronically stitch them into a seamless panorama. Users share these images at the GigaPan website, www.gigapan.org. Additionally, Google Earth features a GigaPan layer.

For more information, visit: www.gigapixelscience.org