Photographer David Bergman took this amazing photo at President Obama's inauguration with the GigaPan system. GigaPan uses a mechanical device called the Gigapan Epic plus an ordinary digital camera to take overlapping images (~220 in this case) and seamlessly stitch them together via special software to make one giant, high-resolution photo (this Obama inauguration photo apparently has 1.57 gigapixel resolution). On the GigaPan.org website it's possible to pan/zoom the photo to an amazing degree of detail. For instance, some ordinary people on the Mall will be able to identify themselves in this picture and show that they were there on January 20, 2009.I believe the software which stitches the photos together involves fractal geometry technology similar to that which astronomers use to piece together images of the sky.
Bergman is selling prints of this photo here for ~$90+ and if I had been there I would deifintely buy one.
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