Gadgetopia

gigapan: Gotta say that I’m kinda smitten with Gigapan.

The GigaPan process allows users to upload, share, and explore brilliant gigapixel+ panoramas from around the globe.

People take and upload panoramic photos with insane pixelcounts, and you can explore them via a Google Maps-like interface.  What’s neat is that people can take “snapshots” to hi-light things in the image, which you can skip through.  It’s like “Where’s Waldo” for realsies.

Some awesome ones:

• A pig sculpture decorating contest in the UK
• Hanauma Bay in Hawaii. Some of those people are so far away.  Look for the turtle.
• Kocani, Macedonia
• The Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve been in this exact spot.  You can zoom all the way into the city in the background, with reasonable clarity.

This proves that all those “enhance” scenes in CSI could totally happen in real life.