OSSD Meeting
May 2005
"The Gigapixel Project"
by Graham Flint (Speaker),
Catherine Aves, and Michael Jones
Abstract: The
Gigapxl™ Project (www.gigapxl.org) combines
cutting edge large-format photography with digital scanning to create ultra-high-resolution
images which are captured at rates in excess of 4E11 pixels per second. Achieving
such high rates calls for the careful balancing of many factors; especially the
balancing of detrimental effects such as atmospheric blurring, lens aberrations,
photographic granularity, and image pixelation. Supplementing the pursuit of ever-increasing
information content, a near-term goal of the Gigapxl™ Project is to produce
an ultra-high-resolution Portrait of America; the content of which will include
images from about 1000 sites in the U.S. and Canada. A longer-term goal is to
document for future generations the locations (currently 788) listed by UNESCO
as World Heritage Sites. Our presentation addresses not only the technical challenges
attendant to these projects, but also the manner in which age-old technology and
newly emerging technology have been combined so as to meet the challenge.
GIGAPXL
BIO'S
Graham Flint (speaker): A physicist by profession,
Graham Flint has sought to bring the perspective of a physicist to other fields;
especially to architecture, astronomy, medicine, military science, photography,
and, most recently, to information display. Early in his career, he was co-inventor
of the world's first infrared laser rangefinder and subsequently has pioneered
the application of lasers in areas as diverse as eye surgery and space-based weaponry.
In the context of photography, he has designed cameras for applications which
range from cold-war espionage to the Hubble Space Telescope. He has published
more than a hundred technical papers and holds a dozen patents.
Graham
has held positions as Chief of Lockheed Martin's Laser Devices Laboratory, as
Executive Vice President of International Laser Systems, and as Director of the
Air Force's Developmental Optics Facility. Most recently, and until joining the
ranks of the semi-retired last year, he served as President and CEO of Photera
Technologies, a California-based corporation specializing in ultra-high-resolution
imagery and laser digital cinema. Along the way, he has been Chairman of the Laser
Division of the U.S. Electronic Industries Association and Co-chairman of the
Channel Islands Alternate Energy Commission. As an avocational endeavor, he has
pursued the GigapxlT Project, a project which brings together the cutting edges
of photographic optics, film technology, and digital processing so as to create
landscape photographs which contain unprecedented amounts of information.
Catherine
Aves: With a background in Fine Arts, Anthropology and Geology, Catherine
Aves brings a multidisciplinary perspective to the GigapxlT Project. The founding
of her desktop publishing business, TechEditions, in 1989 was prefaced by nearly
20 years experience in positions which included Technical Editor for the Air Force's
Developmental Optics Facility, Office Manager and Editor for several environmental
research organizations, and Document Specialist for the Albuquerque Cultural Resources
Division of the Bureau of Land Management
During recent years,
she has become intimately familiar with the sophisticated aspects both of Adobe
Photoshop and of pigment ink printing; especially with those aspects which relate
to ultra-high-resolution imagery. Working with software engineers at Adobe, Gigapxl's
multi-gigabyte files have been used to exercise the latest versions of Photoshop
and to emphasize the need for digital processing tools which can handle ever-increasing
file size.
Michael T. Jones is a supporter and advocate
of the Gigapxl Project with the personal ambition to preserve all 788 UNESCO World
Heritage Sites using the unique visual capabilities of the Gigapxl cameras. Michael
is an avid photographer active in digital photography of landscapes, nature, architecture,
and travel photography. He writes software to overcome the physical limitations
of his cameras, lenses, and sensors to produce images from an idealized perfect
camera. These images enjoy unlimited spatial resolution and color precision, perfect
linearity, zero chromatic aberration, perfect flatness of field, unlimited depth
of field, and meaningful color. His approach requires many source images per resultant
perfect image, and in this regard falls far short of the Gigapxl camera, particularly
where the subject involves people or action.
He is co-founder
and Chief Technology Officer of Keyhole (recently acquired by Google), an inventor
with eleven issued US patents, a director on private company boards, and an advisor
to interesting Silicon Valley projects. He was formerly President & CEO and CTO
of Intrinsic Graphics, Director of Advanced Graphics Software at Silicon Graphics
responsible for OpenGL, Performer and all other graphics APIs, co-founder of a
movie coloring company, and a computer graphics consultant during the 1980s.
