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 Much of the information on the following pages is drawn from a presentation by Greg Downing for the Animation Department Seminar at The University of Southern California on September 26, 2007. He is described by Division Chair Kathy Smith as, "a researcher, a world traveler, and a visual effects artist." There is a lot of work being done in spherical imagery nearly every semester right here at USC as a part of the Creative Workflow in Visual Effects course taught by Associate Professor Eric Hanson. Panoramic photography involves taking a series of still photographs at multiple angles from a single point until an entire "sphere" is captured. The photographs can then be "stitched" seamlessly back together into a cohesive environment.  Click on the photo above for a more interactive experience.  Traditional photography often encourages a single subject while panoramic photography should encourage the viewer to look around an environment. Do away with compositional tools that require a frame like the Rule of Thirds and Golden Rectangle Some images make more sense in a spherical format as Greg shows in this example: Get the Flash Player to see this player.  Greg's latest endeavor, in partnership with Eric Hanson, has been xRez, their research into gigapixel, or extremely high resolution panoramic photography. Consider as a unit of measure that the human eye sees on average 60 lines per single degree. The earliest work Greg and Eric did was a 2.8 gigapixel spherical image which captured 209 pixels per degree or roughly 3.5 times the detail you can see. Now they are working at a resolution of 9 gigapixels, images that are roughly ten times the capability of the human eye. In short, you will see things in these photographs which would be impossible to see with the naked eye if you were actually there. What Greg finds interesting is the detail. A gigapixel photograph as a whole may not be that interesting, but once you start to zoom in and explore it stories and vignettes are revealed that make the image more compelling. In fact, it becomes a challenge determining the best way to represent all that detail. As Greg states, "one of our current endeavors is figuring out how we're actually using all this information that we're able to capture in dynamic ways that can bring out the interesting details and help us tell more interesting stories with what we capture."  Realviz - Panoramic Photography Software Seitz Roundshot - Fast 360 Degree Panoramic Equipment |
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