Most consumer level digital cameras offer resolutions of about 5 or 6 megapixels. But scientists at Microsoft Research are trying to create a 10 gigapixel photograph that would be the largest digital panoramic photo in the world. The project is dubbed "Big Panoramas" (1 Gigapixel = 103 * Megapixel)The technique involves taking several hundred pictures with a standard digital camera, stitching the photos together and then compensating for changes in the position of the sun, the movement of clouds and other environmental factors during the time it took to take all of the photos.
The camera is not held by a person. It sits in a motorized rig and the angle of the rig and camera are controlled by a computer.
Michael Cohen, who is behind the Video Tooning project, has already created a 4-gigapixel photo of downtown Seattle by shooting and stitching together 800 single snaps in an hour and a half. Much like Microsoft Virtual Earth, users can zoom in on windows on different buildings, or zoom out to get a view of the entire skyline.
The end result is something akin to the satellite images on services like Google Earth. The difference is that the angle is more familiar. The pictures provide the panorama you might see staring out of a window on a building, or from standing on the sidewalk. Satellite images capture only the unfamiliar bird's-eye views of rooftops.
Source: Microsoft pictures a 10-gigapixel photo