Science Like You’ve Never Seen It Before...

Fine International Conference on GigaPixel Imaging for Science

Join us in Pittsburgh November 11-13 for an inspiring new conference regarding the future of imaging for science communication, discovery and documentation. Whether you’re a middle school science teacher, an environmental photojournalist or a Ph.D. physicist, learn how gigapixel imaging is redefining visualization and public participation in science inquiry. Speakers include National Geographic, NASA and Google.
Sponsored by IEEE and AAAS
Details: http://gigapixelscience.org

We're super excited for this panel at the Gigapixel Conference

On November 12th, we're going to have a super cool panel on micro/macro&nano Gigapixel images.

This panel explores how the application of gigapixel imaging technology can meet these research needs and allow for new discoveries in the microscopic realm. Participants will discuss the design and implementation of a few different instrumental adaptations that enable automatic mosaic capture of images through optical microscopes, scanning electron microscopes, and macro photography. This includes a discussion of motion control, focus stacking, and image stitching techniques currently used in our prototype Micro GigaPan devices.

The panel will be composed of:

• Gene Cooper, President, Four Chambers Studio
• Rich Gibson / Thinker / Carnegie Mellon University
• Jay Longson / Researcher / UC Santa Cruz /
• Richard Palmer
• John Rawlins / Curator / Carnegie Museum of Natural History
• Randy Sargent / Carnegie Mellon University

Gigapixel images @ the Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Eight giant images have been selected by a jury for the Fine International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging and will be unveiled at a gallery opening on Friday, November 11th. The prints will be up to four feet high and 17 feet wide, encompassing nearly 4 billion pixels (enough to cover 10 billboards at standard resolution). These dramatic works of art and science will be on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History through the end of the year. Congratulations to our winners!

• "Eagle's Nest petroglyph, Jubbah, northern Saudi Arabia," http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/a71450566d961589b80142919a4087bb/, is a GigaPan photo by Richard T. Bryant. It was produced for a project led by Olsen and paleontologist Chris Beard of Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Majeed Khan of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Saudi Arabia, and was made possible through the cooperation of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, with the support of the Layan Foundation.
• "Galapagos Bait Ball of Salema," http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/34815/, by Jason Buchheim of Odyssey Expeditions, shows a large school of salema fish as they swirl into a giant bait ball to protect themselves from predators. A view from inside the bait ball also can be viewed at http://gigapan.org/gigapans/34662/
• "The Big Four," http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/49310/, by Andrew R. Deans and Matthew A. Bertone of North Carolina State University, shows an insect specimen drawer with a sampling from the four largest insect orders, which collectively comprise more than 800,000 species.
• "Bergamot and Hummingbirds, Vermont," http://gigapan.org/gigapans/28833/, by Chris Fastie, a forest ecologist in Salisbury, Vt., combines a GigaPan of bergamot flowers with additional photographs of a male and female hummingbird gathering nectar.
• "Barnacle," http://gigapan.org/gigapans/27625/, by Molly Gibson of Sebastopol, Calif., is a GigaPan combining 384 scanning electron microscope images of a single barnacle.
• "Penguins at Cape Crozier," http://gigapan.org/gigapans/41509/, by Stephanie Jenouvrier of France's National Center for Scientific Research, shows a large colony of Adelie penguins. The image includes penguins exhibiting various behaviors, such as porpoising and feeding chicks.
• "From Sierra de en Medio," http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/48583/, by Rurik List of the Institute of Ecology at the National University of Mexico, shows an isolated mountain range within Mexico's 1.3 million-acre Janos Biosphere Reserve.
• "Unhealthy Honey Bee Frame," http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/27538/, by Dennis vanEngelsdorp and Michael Andree of Penn State University, is a GigaPan of a brood chamber that has been removed from an unhealthy beehive. The image can be used to teach beekeepers about disease identification and bee biology.

There is still time to register and join us for this amazing conference: www.gigapixelscience.org

GigaPan: Democratizing information and bolstering bioliteracy

Fine Fellow Alex Smith wrote a fantastic article about his experience with gigapan for the quarterly newsletter of the International Barcode for Live Project.

Alex concludes, "There are many parallels between the GigaPan and DNA barcoding as complementary forces for democratizing information and bolstering bioliteracy. Both are publicly accessible, both will be annotated through time by a community of experts and non-experts alike and both exist as a synthetic connection from the digital to the natural world.

One key to our capacity to understand the changes caused by the increasing pressures of the urbanization and degradation of natural environments will be ongoing monitoring through time. If such monitoring is democratized and publically available as DNA barcodes and GigaPans, then a marginalized environment may become more valued by the human population."

 Check out the full article at http://ibol.org/gigapan/.

Fine Fellow Callan Bentley @ Smithsonian.com

Forget the museum for geological history, all you need to do is join Callan Bentley, of Northern Virginia Community College, for a tour. Check out the write-up, "Finding Fossils Where you Don't Expect Them" at Smithsonian.com.

Congratulations, Callan.

xRez+workshop=just one awesome part of the Fine Gigapixel Conference

The first ever Gigapixel workshop will include some very fascinating workshops by some very amazing people. xRez Studio, headed by Eric Hansen and Greg Downing, is a creative imaging studio pioneering new methods to capture and convey natural, urban, and imagined landscapes, striving to educate, illuminate, and persuade. Eric Hansen, CEO, is also an Associate Professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Eric is a visual effects designer specializing in the creation of digital environments. Greg Downing, President, also teaches at Gnomon School for Visual Effects and has published professional training DVDs on photogrammetry and panoramic stitching. Greg specializes in image-based 3D technologies and computational photography techniques.

On Friday, November 12th, Eric and Greg will lead a hands-on workshop called On-Site Data Acquisition Technique. Participants will learn common techniques used in the feature film visual effects field to acquire information from real-life locations that will later be the basis of 3d reconstructions for visual communication or study. The focus will be on photographic techniques, such as HDRI capture, gigapixel panoramic background photography, photogrammetry for set reconstruction, and polynomial texture mapping for cultural heritage artifacts. Site survey techniques and the recording of lens information and distortion will be demonstrated as well as a brand new technique for 3d point cloud data capture based on Microsoft Photosynth software.

Sound exciting? We think so too. Sign-up to join us at the Fine International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging for Science. It is not too late to register: www.gigapixelscience.org

Last day for early registration

$200 for three amazing days of Gigapixel Imaging -- you've still got time for early registration. Keynote speakers from National Geographic, Google and NASA. Don't miss this groundbreaking event. www.gigapixelscience.org