Jan. 27, 2009

Sonja Alexander
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761
sonja.r.alexander{at}nasa.gov

MEDIA ADVISORY: M09-019

NASA-DERIVED TECHNOLOGY CAPTURES UNIQUE INAUGURAL IMAGE

WASHINGTON -- NASA spinoff technology from the Mars exploration
rovers
was used to capture a unique panoramic image of President Obama's
inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20.

A photographer at the inauguration, David Bergman, used the Gigapan
camera system to generate an image from a press platform. The
resulting picture is a combination of 220 images with an overall size
of 1,474 megapixels.

The Gigapan system is a NASA spinoff technology that can capture
thousands of digital images and weave them into a uniform
high-resolution picture of more than a billion pixels. The technology
is the product of a two-year collaboration between NASA and Carnegie
Mellon. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have used the Gigapan
system to explore the Red Planet for more than five years.

To read a 2008 Spinoff story about the Gigapan technology, visit:

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2008/ch_2.html

To see the inaugural image, visit:

http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=15374

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