Extreme Resolution Photography

Check this craziness out. A truly stunning project. Thanks to Rita Kunzler for passing along this link! Here's the blurb from creator Greg Downing:

Hi,

After a few years of work I have finally posted some of the gigapixel photography that I have been creating with my business partner and buddy Eric Hanson and I thought it would be a good time to let my friends and colleagues know about it. I used a pan and tilt technique with a motion control head to assemble 350 16 mega pixel images into a single 3.8gigapixel 360 degree spherical panorama of Yosemite as well as some other locations. I then took the image and split it up into over 100,000 256x256 jpg tiles and used the google maps api to point at my tiles instead of googles map tiles. Now anyone can navigate them. Each time you reload the home page you will find one of 5 of our gigapixel images, and more are coming in the next few weeks. One of the photos is taken from the same spot that Ansel Adams shot "Monolith, the Face of Half Dome" on a spot called "the diving board". From this one spot you can see 9 waterfalls, hikers in the valley below, big and little Yosemite valleys and even a rock climber on the face of half dome almost a mile away. There are 7 other images of this resolution on the site and some interesting movies of time-lapse w/ DEM integration that is interesting too.

This is our second attempt at a launch, the first one was last week. Within a few hours of posting it on a few visual effects studios internal mailing lists the response was like an avalanche. We were serving 22 gigabytes an hour and we were using our entire ISPs bandwidth, they basically kicked us off since they could not serve their other customers. We have since found an ISP with a dedicated connection with 60 times the bandwidth and are on our own dedicated server, so we should be up to the task this time around!

I am trying to get the word out about this website, so if you are a digg.comuser or have a blog please click on the digg link from the homepage and add some comments or blog about it if you think it's cool and tell your friends.

Thanks!
-Greg

Winter Wonderland!

Well no-one really expected this! A massive (by west coast standards mind you) snow storm has rolled over southern B.C. this week. This is the view off of my back sundeck looking pretty much due east at Mount Seymour. Those three peaks you can see are called "The Pumps." Although this has meant all the usual crippling fallout around town with people and infrastructure basically not dealing with it all that well... I have actually really enjoyed it! I love winter! You know, it is a cool thing when the buses are so crowded the driver is just having a laugh with people, letting people on at both ends without worrying about getting all the fares simply because he doesn't want people to be out in the cold! Amazing. As I got on the bus this morning in a decidedly messy morning commute and looked around at all the different faces and heard all the languages being spoken that I couldn't understand, yet people are all happily co-existing all crammed tightly together... Well I couldn't help but feel a little more upbeat about the world. Simple as that.

The 2006 Gentleman's Weekend

After much delay and general phaffing about the annual event that all those in the "Bryden Closed Circuit Audience" anxiously await each year of finally happened! The 2006 Gentleman's Weekend! Now, for those of you not in the know here is the brief history. Eight years ago my buddy Pat Bryden got married and invited friends from all corners of his life to a brief "Gentleman's Weekend" prior to the big event. Much hilarity, quaffing of brewskies, ingestion of the famous "Spolumbo's Sausage" of Calgary origins (and resulting expulsion of various vapours and gases) ensued. When Pat's twin brother Mike got married the following year said group of friends once again shared in a weekend of camaraderie. When the next year rolled around, and no-one was getting hitched - we all decided to have a "Gentleman's Weekend" anyway! And in the years since a weekend away with the Brydens has become an annual event. This year was the third straight in B.C. but shifted from the surfer's paradise of Tofino to the downhill shredding heaven of the coastal mountains!

Nick-named the first ever "Winter Dubb," The 2006 Gentleman's Weekend hosted by Miko Bryden and located in the Squamish and Whistler region proved to be massively enjoyable. Beginning with the traditional marathon ball-hockey kick-off this year located in East Vancouver and finishing up with a nail biting winter rally style race on the Sea to Sky Highway to the airport in blizzard conditions, the early on-set of winter on the west coast provided the perfect setting for an explosion winter sports action. Accommodations at the How Sound Brew Company provided sensational libations including the ever-present order of "Rusty Nails" known colloquially as "the death nail."

Now, The Walshman is not exactly known as a regular on the downhill slopes preferring the heart pounding (literally) thrills of skate skiing. However, in honour of the weekend's gathering, he decided to mount some boards and assault the mountain. Little did he know he would show such divine inspiration on the slopes! Novice? Who said anything about novice! The Walshman has mad downhill skills! Who would have thunk it!? The first run was a blue and he never looked back! Preparations have already begun for the G.W. 2007 in Fernie and The Walshman will be dusting off his mountain biking stead... A year is too long to wait!