More related stories<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nResearchers including wildlife biologists and archaeologists already use image-stitching software to create similar images from lots of lower-resolution files. But the ability to take the entire picture in one instant rather than taking individual shots over a period of minutes to an hour \u2014 during which time those swans might all have flown away \u2014 will be useful for capturing dynamic processes.<\/p>\n
With such technology, \u201cwhen you\u2019re in the field, you don\u2019t have to decide what you\u2019re going to study \u2014 you can capture as much information as possible and look at it for five years\u201d, says Illah Nourbakhsh, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who developed image-stitching software called Gigapan. \u201cThat really changes your mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bigger and better<\/h2>\n
In general, taking high-resolution images demands a large lens. Very rapidly, the optics become \u201cthe size of a bus\u201d, says Brady. And high-resolution cameras usually have a limited field of view, meaning that they can see only a small slice of the total scene at a time. For example, each of the four 1.4-gigapixel cameras being used in the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, which will scan the night sky for potentially dangerous near-Earth objects such as asteroids, focuses on a view of the sky only three degrees wide. And each uses a 1.8-metre mirror and a large array of light-sensing chips to accomplish the feat.#<\/p>\n
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Billion-pixel pictures<\/h2>\n
David Brady discusses the gigapixel camera with the Nature<\/i> podcast team.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n