Science and Art Combine to Deliver a New Gigapixel Reality
The world’s first automated and outdoor gigapixel webcam, EarthCam’s GigapixelCam, is now available to help project teams monitor jobsites and document progress with greater scope and precise detail. Using propriety technology and software, the revolutionary system has a unique robotic camera with a custom lens that surgically pans a jobsite at defined intervals, capturing multiple high resolution images. These images are then stitched together into an impressive 360-degree panorama as large as one billion pixels.
Brian Cury, CEO and Founder of EarthCam, says, “We’ve broken the megapixel barrier with this camera. The GigapixelCam is truly unique because of its ability to zoom in, take 16 megapixel snapshots of very detailed areas, and then stitch them together into a mosaic that, when viewed in its entirety, looks like one unified image. The real differentiator is when you digitally zoom in to examine the picture detail, you are looking at an extremely high resolution picture, not a pixelated rendering.”
One of the first applications of EarthCam’s GigapixelCam is on the estimated $500 million Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) library, now under construction in Washington, D.C. The webcam is installed across the street from the project site on the busy National Mall. In the past, a project such as the NMAAHC library project site that takes up a city block would have required several cameras to capture perspectives of the entire site. With this new innovative technology, the owner and project team can see the entire jobsite and surrounding structures with a resolution that gives clarity to people and equipment on the site. In addition, with EarthCam’s marketing services, project managers can effectively promote construction milestones and progress to the public through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
To pan and zoom around the NMAAHC site, visit http://archives.earthcam.com/s/gpnmaahc/.