The Gigapan robot and viewer are great for taking and viewing really LARGE images.

Since 2006 with the first ‘Gigapan’, there have been 12 images to hold the ‘Largest Gigapan’ title, increasing in size by a factor of 2000x!

It is amazing how large the largest is really, compared to a regular digital photo ![which reminds me of putting Zaphod Beeblebrox into The Total Perspective Vortex, which gives a person a complete glimpse of the whole universe almost instantaneously. It compares the incredibly small size of the person to the enormous size of the universe. It shows him the size of the “entire unimaginable infinity of creation” along with a tiny little marker that says, “You are here.” …]_

Congratulations to all the photographers and artists whose patience and determination enabled these amazing Gigapans.

Who will create the next ‘Largest’???

Here are the records:
November 29, 2006 Guatemalan Market by Leila Hasan with Unesco, .53 Gigapixels
March 14, 2007 North and East from Prudential Center by Randy Sargent, 1.29 Gigapixels
October 13, 2007 San Francisco from Twin Peaks by Randy Sargent, 3.65 Gigapixels
December 17, 2007 Mandelbrot by Ted Morse, 10.00 Gigapixels
September 20, 2008 The Mandelbrot set as a collection of Julia sets, second attempt by sbprzd, 12.80 Gigapixels
May 7, 2009 port macquarie lookout by j, 17.37 Gigapixels
April 22, 2010 Aspen Highlands Maroon Bowl in 3D-Stereo by Jason Buchheim, 18.77 Gigapixels
April 23, 2010 Dubai 45 gigapixels by the friendly Gerald Donovan, 44.88 Gigapixels
July 8, 2010 Corcovado 67GP (first stitch) by The Rio de Janeiro – Hong Kong Connection, 67.82 Gigapixels
September 6, 2010 Park Avenue – Arches National Park by Alfred Zhao, 77.97 Gigapixels
December 17, 2010 Shanghai Skyline One Year Anniversary Edition by Alfred Zhao, 92.59 Gigapixels
September 13, 2010 Sugar Loaf – 0.15 Terapix by The Rio de Janeiro – Hong Kong Connection, 152.41 Gigapixels
April 30, 2011 MassiveBlack: A Large-Scale Simulation of the Early Universe by Yu Feng, 1166.40 Gigapixels

(please excuse me for having taken the liberty of not including Gigapans that were largest due to stitching errors, and for placing Shanghai Skyline before Sugar Loaf, it was originally uploaded after Sugar Loaf at 272 Gigapixels, and was later scaled down to be 92 Gigapixels by Alfred Zhao as the Autopano stitch software was creating ‘interpolation’ size exaggeration. Alfred Zhao uploaded a revised edition that removed the interpolation. It should therefore be noted that Sugar Loaf, also stitched with Autopano, has ‘interpolation’ size inflation and should probably be scaled down to 1/3 its current size, giving top honors of largest natural world Gigapan to Alfred Zhao.)

The above mentioned site is in direct contravention with the Gigapan website terms and conditions, and also with the intellectual property rights of those who contribute work to Gigapan.

No attempt was made to contact me prior to including my work on the above website, and the owner seems to think that he is in contravention neither of my IP rights, nor the terms and conditions of Gigapan’s website.

Apparently, he seems to think that he is being “courteous” by complying with my request to remove my work.

If this kind of behaviour is allowed to continue so flagrantly, then clearly Gigapan are not making any effort to implement their own terms and conditions, and I will be removing all work from the Gigapan website.

Regards,

Gerald.