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Multiscale gigapixel photography.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Brady, DJ; Gehm, ME; Stack, RA; Marks, DL; Kittle, DS; Golish, DR; Vera, EM; Feller, SD
Published in: Nature
June 2012

Pixel count is the ratio of the solid angle within a camera's field of view to the solid angle covered by a single detector element. Because the size of the smallest resolvable pixel is proportional to aperture diameter and the maximum field of view is scale independent, the diffraction-limited pixel count is proportional to aperture area. At present, digital cameras operate near the fundamental limit of 1-10 megapixels for millimetre-scale apertures, but few approach the corresponding limits of 1-100 gigapixels for centimetre-scale apertures. Barriers to high-pixel-count imaging include scale-dependent geometric aberrations, the cost and complexity of gigapixel sensor arrays, and the computational and communications challenge of gigapixel image management. Here we describe the AWARE-2 camera, which uses a 16-mm entrance aperture to capture snapshot, one-gigapixel images at three frames per minute. AWARE-2 uses a parallel array of microcameras to reduce the problems of gigapixel imaging to those of megapixel imaging, which are more tractable. In cameras of conventional design, lens speed and field of view decrease as lens scale increases, but with the experimental system described here we confirm previous theoretical results suggesting that lens speed and field of view can be scale independent in microcamera-based imagers resolving up to 50 gigapixels. Ubiquitous gigapixel cameras may transform the central challenge of photography from the question of where to point the camera to that of how to mine the data.

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Published In

Nature

DOI

EISSN

1476-4687

ISSN

0028-0836

Publication Date

June 2012

Volume

486

Issue

7403

Start / End Page

386 / 389

Related Subject Headings

  • Time Factors
  • Stars, Celestial
  • Photography
  • Optics and Photonics
  • Optical Phenomena
  • Lakes
  • General Science & Technology
  • Electronics
  • Data Mining
  • Birds
 

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Brady, D. J., Gehm, M. E., Stack, R. A., Marks, D. L., Kittle, D. S., Golish, D. R., … Feller, S. D. (2012). Multiscale gigapixel photography. Nature, 486(7403), 386–389. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11150
Brady, D. J., M. E. Gehm, R. A. Stack, D. L. Marks, D. S. Kittle, D. R. Golish, E. M. Vera, and S. D. Feller. “Multiscale gigapixel photography.Nature 486, no. 7403 (June 2012): 386–89. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11150.
Brady DJ, Gehm ME, Stack RA, Marks DL, Kittle DS, Golish DR, et al. Multiscale gigapixel photography. Nature. 2012 Jun;486(7403):386–9.
Brady, D. J., et al. “Multiscale gigapixel photography.Nature, vol. 486, no. 7403, June 2012, pp. 386–89. Epmc, doi:10.1038/nature11150.
Brady DJ, Gehm ME, Stack RA, Marks DL, Kittle DS, Golish DR, Vera EM, Feller SD. Multiscale gigapixel photography. Nature. 2012 Jun;486(7403):386–389.
Journal cover image

Published In

Nature

DOI

EISSN

1476-4687

ISSN

0028-0836

Publication Date

June 2012

Volume

486

Issue

7403

Start / End Page

386 / 389

Related Subject Headings

  • Time Factors
  • Stars, Celestial
  • Photography
  • Optics and Photonics
  • Optical Phenomena
  • Lakes
  • General Science & Technology
  • Electronics
  • Data Mining
  • Birds