2009 Inauguration Redux

It turns out that Microsoft's Photosynth is not the only way to come up panoramic HD pictures. If you recall, CNN used Photosynth to put together thousands of photos of the moment Barack Obama took the oath to become President of the United States in to a single high-def image. Turns out that there is another competing software out there that allows you do the same thing. It's called GigaPan. It not only allows you to find and share high-def panoramic pictures in a user committee like Facebook or Filckr, but also allows you to learn how to make your own. To be honest, the GigaPan way seems more intensive than than Microsoft's approach. Here is how GigaPan describes it's process. With Photosynth, the software does most of the work and you can take photos from different sources.


The GigaPan process engages with you in four steps:

1. Explore

Starting right now, you can search, browse and explore all of the panoramas that are available on the GigaPan sharing site. Dive into the panoramas to explore for yourself, or explore other users' snapshots to see what others have found.

2. Discover

As soon as you create your free user account, you can not only explore, but you can also annotate and share your discoveries by creating new snapshots and describing what you have found. This is a way to take part in the GigaPan community even if you have not done panoramic photography yet.

3. Create

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.

You don't need specialized GigaPan hardware to take your own panoramas. If you have lots of patience, a high-quality digital camera, and a good tripod (or very steady hand!) you can take hundreds or thousands of overlapping, zoomed-in pictures for a gigapixel-scale panorama, then use off-the-shelf stitching software to combine the images into one very high-resolution panorama for upload.

4. Share

Once you create your free account, you can download our free upload tool to enable you to take any panoramic, high-resolution image and add it to the GigaPan sharing site for community exploration, annotation, and discovery.

Here is an example from their site - a shot of the Inauguration by David Bergman.