22MP Display Wall For Gigapixel Images Created [Video]

As the number of gigapixel images available increases – offering incredible detail from indecently high-resolution cameras – it seems all the more perverse to view them, as if peering through a keyhole, in your browser.  Over at the University of Tromsø in Norway they've come up with a better solution, though you'll need a pretty big kit box if you want to replicate it.  They've created a 22-megapixel display wall, made up of 28 projectors driven by 30 computers, which can display huge gigapixel images and respond to multi-point gesture control.Video demo after the cut

Together it's enough to produce a roughly 19 x 9 foot window through which you can view gigapixel shots, zoom and pan through them using hand gestures, and generally enjoy the images at more the scale that they were actually taken.  Each of the 28 projectors is responsible for a 1024 x 768 chunk of the overall image, with the total resolution being 7168 x 3072.

Meanwhile 16 floor-mounted cameras track the viewer and – with the help of eight further computers – interpret gestures made in the space in front of the projected image.  The overall system is currently being used to display a gigapixel image of Tromsø taken by Eirik Helland Urke.  The team behind the display wall - Tor-Magne Stien Hagen, Daniel Stødle and Otto J. Anshus – are promising more technical details soon; until then, check out the video demo below.

[Thanks Daniel!]