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Google Street View is unavailable in Mauritius, so one resident created his own using a DJI drone

27 Jun

On the island of Mauritius, which is about 1,200 miles (2,000km) southeast from the mainland continent of Africa, Google has never sent a car for gathering street view data. Considering the remoteness of the island nation and its relatively small – but dense – population of nearly 1.3 million, Google’s neglect makes fiscal sense. However, Mauritian resident Reuben Pillay wanted to address the situation himself and he started his ReubsVision project.

Over the last year and a half, Pillay traveled around Mauritius with his DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone. As you can imagine, it’s a large undertaking. He told PetaPixel ‘We’re a small island – driving from my place to anywhere can take at most an hour and a half since I’m pretty much centered.’ Pillay also noted that the constantly changing weather on the island added a lot of difficulties.

A screenshot from ReubsVision showing Grand Sable. Image credit: Reuben Pillay, ReubsVision

Pillay stitched the photos from his drone together to create a 360-degree image of each location he visited, covering the entire coastline of the island using more than 220 high-resolution photos. Each image took Reuben about 10 hours to create.

In addition to spending a huge amount of time and effort to capture and stitch together his images, Reuben also needed to learn how to code and set up the website for ReubsVision. He tells PetaPixel, ‘[It] was actually the first website I ever built…I had no prior experience in doing any of that.’

A zoomed-in view of the same location as above. Image credit: Reuben Pillay, ReubsVision

It was an expensive project in terms of cost and time. ReubsVision is completely free to access and explore, and is a really great way to learn more about Mauritius. Pillay says, ‘All I want for now is that people discover my island.’

If you’re interested in capturing your own 360-degree images using a drone, you can refer to the following video tutorials from Atti Bear and Ben Claremont.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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The Canadian Internet Registration Authority has created a free and funny stock photo library

20 Jan

A lumberjack checking out a hockey player is a Canadian take on the ‘distracted boyfriend’ meme. Photo courtesy of CIRA/.CA.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), the organization in charge of Canada’s ‘.ca’ top-level domain, has published a series of stock photos that poke fun at Canadien stereotypes. In a bid to get more people to add something ‘uniquely Canadian’ to their projects, they’re offering up their library of stock images for free.

Photo courtesy of CIRA/.CA

Anyone can use small, medium, large or extra-large sized images from the library, though they ask for an email address to access the extra-large 4K files. All CIRA asks, in return, is that a credit along the lines of ‘photo by CIRA/.CA,’ along with a link back to their website, is included.

Photo courtesy of CIRA/.CA. Also, no, this is not long-lost relative of Jordan—so far as we’re aware.

CIRA has their own version of the popular ‘distracted boyfriend’ meme, featuring a hockey player, and other distinct nods to Canadian culture including a moose interacting with backpackers and a lumberjack taking a swig of maple syrup. Anyone with the desire to add to this collection of images is encouraged to contact CIRA.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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UC Berkeley researchers have created a drone that shrinks to squeeze through small spaces

09 Aug

Since drones entered mainstream consciousness, people have gotten creative with developing new ideas for how they can be used. Drones can deliver food and other small items. They can even bake cakes or play instruments when configured properly. Now, a team of researchers at UC Berkeley’s High Performance Robotics Laboratory (HiPeRLab) has created a ‘Passively Morphing Quadcopter’ that can temporarily shrink down to squeeze through small spaces.

While this isn’t the first drone that can compress its shape mid-flight, it is the only one that can shift its shape without using any additional hardware components. This feature helps preserve battery life, enabling the aircraft the fly even longer. Engines enable the arms to rotate freely and constant force springs provide the momentum to change shape. When no thrust is applied, the springs pull the arms into a folded configuration.

When the drone approaches an opening smaller than it can fit, it can plot a course that allows its arms to retract as it’s flying through a small small space. The rotors shut off and after the drone passes through, it loses a bit of altitude as it powers back up. While this set up can offer up a number of useful real-world applications, like inspecting hard-to-reach areas, there is still work to be done by the HiPeRLab team for it to work in any other scenario where there isn’t a wide open area on the other side of a small space for the drone to squeeze though. Nevertheless, when perfected, it could make for an innovative filmmaking tool.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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World’s largest wet collodion plate created in abandoned house converted into a camera

29 Nov

While the rest of the world has been concentrating on making cameras smaller and lighter photographer Ian Ruhter was making one literally the size of a house in order to make the world’s largest wet collodion plate. Ian and his team sealed up an abandoned house in California and mounted a lens in the wall to create a massive camera. The camera was used to produce a portrait of a 100-year-old local resident on a sheet of glass measuring 66×90 inches.

The scale of the camera is one thing, and the size of the finished image is another, but what is most remarkable is that the team used a process that requires the glass plate to be coated with a solution of collodion poured from a jug right before the picture was taken.

The house selected was an abandoned ruin in an area called Bombay Beach, and the living room was used to form the camera. A giant hole for the lens was cut into the side of the house projected the image of the outside world into the room, and onto the massive sheet of glass for a ten second exposure.

The team made a fascinating documentary about the process that shows the project from start to finish and the thinking behind it. More of the team’s old-process adventures can be seen on the Silver and Light Vimeo channel.

Video description:

“While working with wet plate collodion Ruhter came up with an idea to show the world the beauty of these objects in a size that was deemed impossible. This led him and the Silver & Light Team to a forgotten town on the edge of the Salton Sea called Bombay Beach, located in California’s Imperial Valley. The idea was to create a camera out of an abandoned house. The structure would serve as the framework for the camera. Instead of focusing on the decay from the outside, this house camera allowed a view from the inside into someone’s dream.

Once the giant lens was placed on the front of the house, images of Ted, a 100 year old resident who recently found himself homeless, were projected in, breathing new life into this abandoned structure and once again making it a home. During this brief moment in time when Ted’s photograph was captured, he was present in both places. In reality, he was homeless in the outside world. However, the projected image simultaneously allowed him to be sitting in the living room where he was once again home. because the surface of the plate is highly reflective the life sized plate serves as a mirror, allowing one to reflect upon where they will be in the twilight of their life.

Ten seconds of this dream were recorded on a 200 pound sheet of glass coated with collodion. The result was a 66”x 90” Ambrotype, which is recognized as the world’s largest wet plate collodion image.”

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Prairie Wind 16K HDR video was created using two Canon EOS 5DS cameras

18 Nov

Cinematographer Martin Lisius has detailed the creation of a 16K 15,985 x 5792 pixels HDR video titled “Prairie Wind.” The video was published on Vimeo, though the online version of the video is limited to 8K. According to Lisius, the project involved two Canon EOS 5DS cameras with Sigma 35mm F1.4 Art lenses and a custom-built calibrated mount.

“Prairie Wind” showcases weather over America’s Great Plains, according Lisius, who explains in the video description, “I’m fortunate to have grown up on the Great Plains of America where I can touch the sky often. A storm there can transform you … Finding new ways to convey this experience to others is important to me.”

The project involved four months of shooting footage across six Great Plains states and another three months of processing. Lisius estimates “Prairie Wind” contains around 6,100 16K images that were stitched using an 8-core Mac Pro workstation. “Making this short film taught me Jedi-like patience,” Lisius said.

Full details on the creation process can be found in the video’s description on Vimeo. Samples of the full 16K resolution are available to download for free through file-sharing site WeTransfer and licensing is available through Storm Stock.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Google created this rotating 16-GoPro arc to capture light field data for VR

30 Mar

Google has announced that it is experimenting with light field technology to improve its virtual reality content. The company detailed the work in a recent blog post, explaining that it has modified a GoPro Odyssey Jump camera so that it features 16 cameras mounted along a vertical arc, which is itself mounted to a 360-degree rotating platform.

According to Google, light field technology is one potential way to give users a “more realistic sense of presence” within a VR world. Light field-based content presents objects in different ways depending on the position of the user’s head and their distance from the object.

“Far-away objects shift less and light reflects off objects differently, so you get a strong cue that you’re in a 3D space,” Google explains. VR headsets with positional tracking take this to a new level by determining where the user is “located” within the virtual world.

Using its rotating Jump rig, Google is able to capture approximately 1,000 outward-facing viewpoints on a 70cm sphere, which ultimately offers a 2ft / 60cm diameter volume of light rays. The company explains how its translates that data into VR content:

To render views for the headset, rays of light are sampled from the camera positions on the surface of the sphere to construct novel views as seen from inside the sphere to match how the user moves their head. They’re aligned and compressed in a custom dataset file that’s read by special rendering software we’ve implemented as a plug-in for the Unity game engine.

Demo content has been released to the public via the Steam VR app “Welcome to Light Fields.” Users will need a Windows Mixed Reality, HTC Vive, or Oculus Rift headset to view the content. Light field VR demo experiences include a look inside the Space Shuttle Discovery, Gamble House, and Mosaic Tile House.

To learn more, head over to the full technical post on Google’s Keyword blog.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Nice Slice: 30+ Sculptures & Illustrations Created with Cut Paper

17 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

Hand most people some paper and an X-acto knife and ask them to make art, and at best, they’ll produce some cartoonish shapes spattered with blood. But these twelve artists are producing some of the world’s most impressive papercut art, whether by laboring over astonishingly intricate tapestries for months at a time or making use of clever minimalism for a surprisingly big impact.

Sea Creatures by Kiri Ken

Sea creatures and other natural subjects become the slightest wisps of paper in these extraordinarily delicate and detailed paper cuts by artist Kiri Ken, who shares her work on Twitter. The creatures often become something slightly unnatural in the textures and lines Kiri applies to their various parts, sprouting mechanical objects or patterns that look computerized.

Nature Scenes by Pippa Dyrlaga

Each teeny-tiny feather on a kingfisher’s wing, each scale on the body of a goldfish, is cut out with seemingly endless patience and unfailing accuracy in works by Yorkshire-based artist and printmaker Pippa Dyrlaga.

Anatomy by Ali Harrison

Ali Harrison’s versions of human organs are quite a bit prettier than the real thing, each one given surprising depth and heft despite being cut out of ordinary sheets of paper. The artist designs each one and then laser-cuts them so they can be reproduced. She sells them in her Light and Paper shop.

Endangered Species Cut-Outs by Patrick Cabral

Wolves, elephants, pangolins, tigers, pandas and more are rendered starkly in black and white cut paper against a black surface, each layer of their lace-like faces and bodies cut by hand. Manila-based artist Patrick Cabral donated half the proceeds from the sales of each of these endangered species to WWF Philippines.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Nice Slice 30 Sculptures Illustrations Created With Cut Paper

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Take a look at a 380-shot mosaic of Apple’s new campus created with a 100MP Phase One camera

06 Jan

A composite of 380 100MP aerial images has been created of the site of Apple’s new campus by photo mapping and data company SkyIMD. The company usually provides the kit for other aerial photographers to use, but on this occasion wanted to show off the amount of detail that can be captured with a Phase One iXU RS1000 100MP aerial camera. The company used software to create flight paths over the 0.5 square mile construction site and spent just thirty minutes shooting 420 images with the camera attached to a Cessna 172 light aircraft.

When combined to create a single picture of the whole area, the images allow dramatic magnification so that people in the scene can be picked out – even though the plane was flying at 2000ft with a lens just longer than standard for the format.

The Phase One iXU RS1000 industrial camera uses the same CMOS sensor that is used in the IQ3 100 back for the XF 645-style DSLR body, but in this case it is used in a body with no moving parts. The firm used a Rodenstock 90mm lens with the body and once all 420 images were combined and cropped to the equivalent of 380 images, the file measured 4.76GB. SkyIMD used Photoshop’s Photomerge feature to combine the images, but to maintain manageable amounts of data the company divided the images into batches of over 70 covering specific areas of the site. Once the batches were combined those composites were also combined to create the final image, which you can see on the SkyIMD website.

SkyIMD’s Michael Estigoy has provided some detail about how the image was shot and created.

All of the images were captured using our FAA/EASA/ANAC STC certified Aerial Camera Platform. The platform mounts to the strut of a plane (Cessna) and holds the PhaseOne iXU RS1000 90mm camera in a vertical (nadir) position.

During the pre-flight process, we used a software program called Flight Planner from AeroScientific (http://www.aerosci.info/flightplanner/) to create our flight paths, and calculate the frequency of the intervalometer based on the speed, altitude and desired GSD (ground sample distance).

Using the PhaseOne iX Capture Software, we set the exposure and ISO to obtain the best image balance we could. There was some consideration given to capture as much detail as possible – balancing the exposure between not making the shadows too dark and whites/brights too blown out.

We loaded up the flight plan on our iPad – we use an application called Galileo Offline Maps (https://galileo-app.com/) – to depict the flight lines and line up our airplane. Our pilot, who has years of experience flying missions like this, lined up the plane at the speed and altitude we calculated pre-flight, and then flew the lines straight and level. I controlled the camera operation and made sure that the image quality and coverage was being captured successfully.

The parcel required us to fly 7 flight lines to capture the imagery. We flew one grid.
We are planning follow up flights and will fly a double grid pattern on those, or a cross hatch pattern, to capture more images and enable us to create better mosaics and perhaps a 3D model or flyover.

Stitching and imaging process
We typically use photogrammetry software such as those offered by Pix4D and Agisoft. However, this time I elected to try and use Adobe Photoshop to create the Mosaic. I used the Photomerge function.

We had a total of 420 images. We have a high-powered computer (8 core i7, 64GB RAM, m.2 SSD drives, etc., GeForce GTX video card), but 420 is almost impossible to process all at once. I grouped the images into six separate folders, each representing an area of parcel. Each group shared some images with the other groups in order to facilitate matching. After each group, or chunk, of images was merged, I corrected them for distortion and then merged the groups together. After merging, any major flaws were cut out and images were sourced to fill in the holes.

Photoshop used 90% of our installed RAM and approx. 700 GB of scratch disk space on two m.2 SSD drives to complete each group, including the final mosaic.

As mentioned on our site, we did not take any time to massage the resulting mosaic Photoshop produced. I may have adjusted curves, performed some slight sharpening, and that’s about it. There are obvious mis-alignments and distortions in the image. We wanted to share the image rather than spend another week making it perfect.

The final image was cropped to the final size. I had seen the plans Apple submitted to the City of Cupertino and wanted to try and represent that area of view (pages 3 & 4 of this PDF – https://s3.amazonaws.com/apple-campus2-project/Site_Plan1_Submittal7.pdf). The crop was made visually. We eliminated the use of about 40 photos, hence the approx 380 images mentioned on our site.

The image was too large for TIFF or JPG format so it was saved as a Photoshop Large Document (.PSB). In order to support the zooming feature on our web, we used a photoshop plugin from Microsoft:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/HDView/HDPhotoshopPlugin.htm. This created the thousands of tiles for zooming.

I used Openseadragon for the javascript/web enablement for the zoom/interactive viewer:http://openseadragon.github.io/

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Arcatecture: 12 Cat Homes Created by Architects for Charity

12 Nov

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

space international cat home

Raising funds for an feline-focused area non-profit group, these architect-designed cat dwellings span the spectrum from adventure spaces to cozy nooks for your furry friends to explore or sleep within. If you also enjoy supporting canines, it is well worth checking out these 14 architect-designed doghouses likewise built to support a charitable purpose.

hok cat house

dsh architecture cat house

lehrer architects cat home

With proceeds going to FixNation, the Giving Shelter fundraiser (with photographer Grey Crawford) drew an impressive array for architects, firms and designers, including RNL, NAC, DSH, HOK, Wolcott, Lehrer, Space Int’l, Formation Association, Perkins + Wil, and Standard Architecture and Design.

standard architecture cat house

standard architecture modular concrete wood

With tunnels, tubes, ramps and platforms from wood, metal, fake grass and the materials used to make scratching posts, participating designers showed off the huge range of possibilities for catering to domestic cats, in some cases integrating elements of human functionality (with pieces doubling as furniture) as well.

nace cat house design

nace cat tunnel homes

Their robust materiality and construction is intended to make the shelters able to be placed outdoors. More photos from the live benefit can be found via Fixnation and Flickr.

rnl architecture cat house

perkins wil cat house

Architects for Animals “Giving Shelter” is an awareness raising initiative. “The one-night event in Los Angeles benefitted FixNation, a 501c3 organization dedicated to helping community cats in need. Participating architectural design firms designed, built, and donated creative outdoor shelters.”

formation association cat house

formation association cat bench

“These shelters were on display to the public at a one night event at the Herman Miller Showroom in Culver City. FixNation and Architects for Animals offered this unique exhibit and cocktail reception that combines the love of architecture with the love of animals. Attendees enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and wine from the open bar while viewing the original shelter designs.”

space international dynamic cat

space international cat seat

More on the non-profit benefiting from the series: “FixNation is a non-profit organization committed to cats, and to supporting Trap-Neuter-Return. We provide a free, full-time spay/neuter clinic for cats with two full-time veterinarians capable of sterilizing as many as 100 cats per day. We also provide low-cost, affordable spay/neuter services for tame pet cats. We loan out humane traps and equipment to the public free of charge, provide training on how to humanely trap feral cats and kittens, and offer guidance and information on long-term care and management for feral colonies. We are located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley and have been operational as a non-profit since 2007.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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Crack the Code in London Street Art Created for Tech Fest

16 Aug

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

Campus Party Street Art Code

If you’re among the attendees of international technology festival Campus Party, which will take place during the first week of September in London, you have a much better chance of cracking the codes featured in a new series of street art than the average passerby. The murals were commissioned by the festival in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Government Code and Cypher Schools team, which broke the Enigma code.

Campus Party Street Art Code 2

Each freehand painting features the face of a code developer, including Alan Turing, Samuel Morse and Tim Berners-Lee, along with a code. Onlookers are challenged to break the code, and anyone who successfully does so can enter it into a special location on the Campus Party website for a chance to win two tickets to the event.

Campus Party Street Art Code 3

“Mixing raw graffiti with complex binary decimals, these visual contradictions are set to spring up in London, Manchester and Birmingham as we work our way towards the launch of Campus Party at The O2 on September 2nd,” say the organizers.

Campus Party Street Art Code 4

Other forms of code that have popped up in street art include QR codes for digital nomads, binary and other ‘geekfiti‘, and, of course, traditional ‘hoboglyphs.’

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘created’

Google Street View is unavailable in Mauritius, so one resident created his own using a DJI drone

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority has created a free and funny stock photo library

UC Berkeley researchers have created a drone that shrinks to squeeze through small spaces

World’s largest wet collodion plate created in abandoned house converted into a camera

Prairie Wind 16K HDR video was created using two Canon EOS 5DS cameras

Google created this rotating 16-GoPro arc to capture light field data for VR