The Leading Edge of GigaPixel Imaging

This signature CCAT event will focus on new technologies for producing electronic images that contain billions of pixels and can be studied interactively in great detail. Geologists, primatologists, paleontologists, ecologists, and other scientists will use gigapixel imagery to further advance global interdisciplinary collaborative and innovative research.

GigaPan, a combination of a robotic camera mount and a software package, was developed by keynote speaker Illah Nourbakhsh's CREATE Lab and the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, with support from Google. The system can take hundreds of photos of a given scene and then electronically stitch the photos into a seamless panorama. Users share these images at the GigaPan website, www.gigapan.org, and Google Earth features a GigaPan layer. Nourbakhsh will discuss how this new imagery can be leveraged to make scientific discoveries.

About our speakers

Illah R. Nourbakhsh is an Associate Professor of Robotics and head of the Robotics Masters Program in The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1996, and has leveraged that knowledge in various different positions, including Robotics Group lead at the NASA/Ames Research Center, co-founder of the Toy Robots Initiative at The Robotics Institute, director of the Center for Innovative Robotics, and director of the Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) lab. He is also co-PI of the Global Connection Project, home of the Gigapan project. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he was a member of the New Millenium Rapid Prototyping Team for the design of autonomous spacecraft. He is a founder and chief scientist of Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc.

Yilei Zhang, a research Engineer with VRtech, out of TRLabs in Edmonton, will demo their VRcamsystem. Yilei graduated from the University of Alberta with a Masters of Science degree and joined VRTech in 2009. VRTech is a spin-off project incubated through the joint effort of AMMI (Advanced Man-machine Interface) lab at University of Alberta and TRLabs. The camera hardware and software system VRTech is developing, aims to combine augmented reality and tele-presence to create a tele-immsersion experience in a video-conferencing setup.

Michael Witwicki, Executive Producer, Alberta Clipper Media. Michael is a three-time emmy winning producer cinematographer. He has worked for CBC National, NBC, CNN & many TV broadcast networks in North America. Michael is currently doing a multi-media project on Sam Steele; a documentary, combining time lapse & gigapixel imaging.

Ronnie Miranda, owner of Active Computer Services will demonstrate Gigapixel imaging technology and showcase several Gigapan cameras. ACS is the exclusive distributor of the GigaPan EPIC System in Canada. They also provide website design and development using WordPress.

Event Details