This is a composite of downtown Toronto, Centre Island and lake Ontario, put together from photos taken from the CN Tower skypod, 443 m above the ground.
Three rows of 18 photos (54 photos total) were used in the composite. Final processing was about 8 hours on a P3/1GHz/1GB. See here for a full-res extract.
Also, see here for a similar image of Auckland, New Zealand.
This photo was taken on September 26, 2004 in Harbourfront, Toronto, ON, CA.
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Photo license:
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Comments and faves
DogFromSPACE, j / james / bono, jqs, John Bowman, and 160 other people added this photo to their favorites.
DogFromSPACE (88 months ago | reply)
WHOA!! That is *totally* sweet!
jqs (88 months ago | reply)
That's a great photo. The stiching must have taken forever!
Any chance of seeing a higher resolution version?
The Nawab of Pataudi (88 months ago | reply)
Well done!
Squiggle (88 months ago | reply)
See here for a full-res extract. The entire image at full resolution is beyond the limits of my free Flickr account. :-)
kastner (88 months ago | reply)
Can I use this for a button (http://flickr.com/groups/topic/17755/)
?
sugargal 2005 (88 months ago | reply)
That is really awesome!!!!!!
Squiggle (88 months ago | reply)
You can use this image for a button for your own personal use, or to give away to friends and family. You can't sell the buttons or use them as promotional items.
windandwave (88 months ago | reply)
Fantastic! Can you tell us mere mortals how we could do something similar ourselves?
Caralampio (88 months ago | reply)
Boy, this is most amazing! It's beautiful!
Your Good Buddy (88 months ago | reply)
Wicked!
dennis (88 months ago | reply)
fantastic squared circle!!
quas (88 months ago | reply)
That is really amazing! What software did you use to stitch it?
If I had any money, I'd sponsor you. :)
pquan (88 months ago | reply)
Amazing!
Squiggle (88 months ago | reply)
I assembled the composite as a standard rectilinear panorama using AutoPano, Panorama Tools with PTAssembler, and Enblend. I started with three rows of 18 photos each, with quite a lot of overlap. Then I used the Panorama Tools plugin for Photoshop to remap the image from rectilinear to fisheye.
The rectilinear panorama had to cover exactly 360 degrees horizontally so that the two ends matched. I also had to double the height of the rectilinear panorama by adding a lot of black, to give the plugin room to work.
Panorama Tools uses caching to create truly huge images, so PC memory is not much of a problem creating the rectilinear panorama. The Photoshop plugin, however, must do everything in RAM, and that limits the size of the circle.
nobleviola (88 months ago | reply)
congrats on the boing boing mention!
Genista (88 months ago | reply)
And kudos for this image, that's awe inspiring. I particularly love the interplay between the black hole where the tower would be and its shadow.
Robb.Astro (88 months ago | reply)
what is the max res you have this image in?
Robb.Astro (88 months ago | reply)
what an amazing image!
i did something similar in MTL from the top of Mount Royal, and had been thinking of trying a CN tower shot.
inspirational!
kcnickerson (88 months ago | reply)
This is a terrific shot and my new wallpaper. Wonderful detail and even exposure... aced it. thanks.
neternity (88 months ago | reply)
Cool image.
I have a shot from 10,000 ft at gallery.button.ca that gives a different perspective of the same place.
It's titled toronto cn tower.
enjoy.
sprklg (88 months ago | reply)
Iconic!
quas (88 months ago | reply)
Hey, thanks for the explanation, Squiggle.
I didn't know about the Photoshop plugin, though I've done a fair bit with Panorama Tools, via Hugin. Where do I get this plugin? Thanks! :)
EDIT: Just found this. Seems to be Mac only. Wah. :'(
ColdSnap (88 months ago | reply)
That's cool!
Mute* (88 months ago | reply)
Amazing! I love it. I can also see my house on there :D
Alex Vernon (88 months ago | reply)
Very cool!
Jay8 (88 months ago | reply)
What do I have to do to get you to give me the full-res file, so I can have a poster made?
Email jay(at)subtlemotion.ca.
somnambulant (88 months ago | reply)
very cool.. you could definitely make a bundle selling prints. :)
nice job.
FlOx (88 months ago | reply)
Squiggle
Please, post the full-res somewhere.
Ple-e-ease! :-)
Squiggle (88 months ago | reply)
Get a print of this picture!
Click here to go to ez-prints. Enter Customer ID 46682 and Share Code flickr. You can order as many prints as you like in whatever sizes you want (I recommend 20x20") and ez-prints will ship them directly to you. They're photographic quality prints made on Fuji Crystal Archive paper.
Note that you can't actually download the full-res file there, just order prints. Note also that I don't make any money at all off ez-prints. I'm providing the link as a service to the Flickr community.
Please also take note of the Creative Commons license on this image. You can give away prints to family and friends, but you can't sell prints or use them as commercial promotional items.
Robb.Astro (88 months ago | reply)
Squiggle, can we download a full rez version from someplace?
please!
Maccise (88 months ago | reply)
Very Nice!
Matthew Blackett (88 months ago | reply)
This is amazing!
Squiggle -- I run a magazine in Toronto that would be interested in running this image. Please contact me at info@spacing.ca
Squiggle (88 months ago | reply)
quas, you can get the Photoshop plugin by downloading the PTAssembler distribution for free as a zip file (click here). Unzip the file. Inside there is a folder called Photoshop Plugin with instructions. All for WinPC. Google to find creative ways to use the plugin.
KAI5ER (88 months ago | reply)
Sweet jimminy i can see my apartment...no wait.. YES..nope..i really need something to do on a thursday night!
mfshadow (84 months ago | reply)
Awesome!
Shattered Abstracts (83 months ago | reply)
Wow thats really awsome! (I know im a little late but I only got a Flikr account today)
hk_traveller (75 months ago | reply)
Very special!
ck_arts (74 months ago | reply)
That's absolutely great!
Manυ (70 months ago | reply)
That's cool ! too bad you didn't shoot some sky and the nadir...
But 8 hours of processing ? how big is the high res ? I use almost exactly the same tools for www.flickr.com/photos/manuperez/230135746/
Squiggle (70 months ago | reply)
Yes, I didn't think about shooting sky at the time. The nadir, of course, can't be shot from inside the tower (where I shot this series). I'd have to shoot straight down from a helicopter. Very expensive.
The full-res version is 11,808 x 11,808 x 16 TIFF. 800MB for the *finished* image. Intermediate images were about 2GB for each of the 54 components. Whenever you have 120GB to number-crunch on a P3 it's gonna take a long time. By comparison, an image 2,800 x 2,800 x 8 is only 23MB (1 / 35th the size).
Since I made this shot, I've upgraded from a P3 to a P4 system. The new computer is a *lot* faster for the same software & processes. Recent updates to the panotools software are also highly optimized, giving remarkable improvements in processing speed. Nevertheless, at this scale the determining factor is hard drive speed, and (to a lesser degree) the amount of RAM available. The CPU speed is almost irrelevant. The key is software optimized to minimize hard drive access.
I did use equirectangular projection. It's the only type that will work with this kind of shot.
Nathan Bergeron Photography (67 months ago | reply)
This is absolutely amazing. I applaud the work you did and it's worth it after you get a photo that looks this cool. Great work!!!
Faved!
mkooiman (62 months ago | reply)
The Canada Medal on
flickr
photosapience (62 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called blogTO @ Contact 2007, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group.
MPH Photography (61 months ago | reply)
That's one awesome picture. Great job! This has to be my fav pic of my city every.
Ned Lyttelton (61 months ago | reply)
I agree with what Nathan said. This is brilliant work.
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Seen on the Web. (?)
makeupanid (61 months ago | reply)
What a fabulous shot!! just inspiring!
inventor_77 (61 months ago | reply)
One of the best uses of a fish eye lens I've seen! Congratulations on all the acclaim!
Squiggle (61 months ago | reply)
Thanks! I didn't use an actual fish eye lens though, Just a bunch of pictures stitched together, shot through a 24-70mm zoom, probably set to 50mm or so.
SerialCoder (58 months ago | reply)
This image has been added to the Flickr Museum for making explore's top 25. Kudos! You can check it out HERE...
PearldotKom (51 months ago | reply)
this is really cool..