Yesterday (Jan 6) was a field trip day at the Penrose conference. Prior to taking off, however, we had an overview of the use and purpose on
GigaPan panorama photographs from
Ron Schott. You may recall, or at least this is how I first heard of GigaPan shots, the
Obama Inauguration panorama photo. That was a GigaPan.
How GigaPan works is you use a digital camera, the higher the zoom number the better, the pixels aren’t as important as the zoom, and a motorized swivel head on a tripod. You set the camera up (using the GigaPan to control your digital camera) so that it takes a certain number of photographs sweeping from one side of the region you wish to pan to the other. This process can be short, say taking nine photos, to quite long, where you are taking hundreds of shots, all semi-overlapping. The photos are then stitched together in some sort of stitching software that blend the multiple images into one seamless panoramic photograph. GigaPan has a stitching software but there are others as well. Once the panorama is complete, you can zoom in very close, and depending on the configuration of the camera you use, you can see amazing detail.
Ron Schott showed a variety of ways he uses GigaPans in his geological teaching. He showed a rock hand sample (maybe fist-sized) that he could zoom in on small feldspar and hornblende crystals. Using these images could be more illuminating than using hand lens. GigaPan technology can be used with not only traditional microscopes but Scanning Electron Microscopes as well.
Use of GigaPan photos in Google Earth is fairly straightforward. In Google Earth under the Layers section and within the Gallery, click on the GigaPan layer and see what is available in the place you’re interested in. When you click on the GigaPan icon in Google Earth, you will fly “into” the panoramic photo and “see” in the spatial direction that the photographer took the GigaPan. Another resource for the GigaPan photos that are geo-located in Google Earth can be within the GigaPan web site. Look for the View in Google Earth link under the photograph. Or search for a place you’d like to look at in more detail.
Use of the GigaPan out in the field was not difficult. You do not necessarily need a fancy DSLR camera to take a pretty good panorama. Some people used their simple point and clicks. If you’re buying a GigaPan set up the motorized swivel head costs about $900 USD, get a digital camera with a large zoom range, buy lots of space on SD cards, and get a sturdy tripod. I hear that the processor on your laptop or desktop computer ought to be pretty souped up also.
Tweets from YESTERDAY
@meg_stewart Meg Stewart
Geology? Yes, folded chert #GEPenrose http://flic.kr/p/98asTR
@meg_stewart Meg Stewart
And this is what we saw (and GigaPanned) #GEPenrose http://flic.kr/p/98dzy5
@pffli Dr. Paul Filmer
The Gigapans we'll b shooting are 180° from the usual - we look @ the roadcut. But u cn also do Gigapan through a microscope or SEMs.
@pffli Dr. Paul Filmer
About 100 Gigapan images from 2006 r still available via GoogleEarth interface. More recent photos r on gigapan.org & u cn go frm thr 2 GE.
@pffli Dr. Paul Filmer
Most interesting yesterday was the concept of layered Google Earth tours - you can _record_ a tour even while another's playing. #GEPenrose
@pffli Dr. Paul Filmer
Off to the Marin headlands today to do some test Gigapans of outcrops with some loaner equipment. #GEPenrose
@guertin Dr. G
#GigaPan fieldtrip today at #GEPenroseled by @rschott - hoping to snap some beautiful San Francisco gigapans!
