We're so psyched. We plan to buy one of these things and see if we can rock your world with 360 House Tours. Spotted this week in the NYTimes, the GigaPan Epic is an affordable way to do those crazy all-around-the-room tours which you may have seen on some real estate sites or on the NYTimes (like this one of Elaine Kaufman's apartment)...
The GigaPan requires no special camera and will work with a regular point and shoot. When it's done taking pictures with your camera, you download the pics onto your computer and use their software to "stitch" all the pics together. Easy.
"The GigaPan Epic makes it easy to capture incredibly detailed images and works seamlessly with the GigaPan Stitcher and GigaPan.org. The Epic allows your camera to take tens, hundreds, or even thousands of photos. These images are combined into a single gigapixel panorama by the GigaPan Stitcher. You can then view, share, and explore the incredible detail of your panoramas at GigaPan.org."
The GigaPan is reviewed here: Looking to Space Science for Panoramic Expertise - NYTimes
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
You don't need a "gigapan" to accomplish this...
You don't even really NEED a tripod!
All you need is a camera, and the right stitching software. The best I have ever used is called AutoPano Pro, for the mac. You dump a pile of pictures onto it, it sifts through all of them, AUTOMATICALLY STITCHES THEM TOGETHER and renders them... allowing you any level of manual control you desire at every step along the way. You can go full auto, or practically full manual.
Just take the pictures yourself, rotating in layers, with at about a quarter of a frame of overlap for every layer.
I have been taking 360° panoramas with all sorts of cameras for ages... The giga-pan is completely overrated.
view Citizen Gain's profile
You're talking about a static panoramic image. You can take pictures yourself to create a panorama, but the result of a gigapan is an interactive image so that you can zoom into the super-hi-res image. The camera is fully zoomed when it takes the pictures so you would need to take a ton of photos in order to achieve the same result, then stitch and put them into some sort of player that you can zoom in and out with. Trust me, much easier for this machine to take the hundreds or thousands of photos for you for each setup.
view lodel's profile
For the really hi-res stuff, I'm sure the giga-pan is nice...
http://www.techniquirks.com/files/anpanorender.mov
But the above was made using only a fairly small number of photos, taken with a little cybershot, and stitched automatically in AutoPano. It is flawed, but it took all of fifteen minutes to create. With a bit more effort, it could be made to look much better.
It would make more sense, if you're after high-quality, to use fewer photographs at a better resolution to begin with. Consider a wide-angle or fish eye lens on a DSLR. If done properly, you only need take eight individual photos.
An awesome panorama resource:
http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/index.html
view Citizen Gain's profile
You know what I'd appreciate much more than slow-loading, distorted, zoomable panos? Floorplans. Just something rough sketched by the homeowner to give a sense of layout.
view farmhousemoderne's profile
Well I personally am also psyched! I love nothing more than when my favourite tv shows make 360 tours of the sets. There is simply no better way to really get a sense of what a room feels like (short of being there).
Congrats AT! I'm excited! I applaud your willingness to move forward and further enhance the house tours section of our favourite blog.
farmhousemoderne has a good point, though... perhaps a floor plan, no matter how rough, would be a nice pairing to these new, more detailed house tours?
view brenton's profile
Although I'm a hardcore GigaPan fan (many of my friends and co-workers have used the beta GigaPans from CMU http://gigapan.org/searchGigapansList.php?keywords=&sort=popular ), I wholeheartedly second the desire for more floor plans!
view A Necessary Equal's profile
WHOA! I just just checked out the Gigapan of Elaine's apartment. It's beyond awesome! I was skeptical, having viewed many of the old, static whirl-arounds on sites like Realtor.com, but this is truly above and beyond! Not only a great way to view an interior, but, by loop-de-looping the cursor, you can replicate the sensation of flying dreams. I still feel all light and airy! Elaine's apartment is gorgeous, too----
view Aulaire's profile