Hewn from over 1,000 high resolution images, the world’s largest 360 degree sports stadium photo shows the scene of last week’s FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Stoke.
Commissioned by Wembley Stadium, the panorama was created by Jeffrey Martin from 360Cities.net using a digital SLR and zoom lens mounted on a custom designed programmable robotic tripod head.
The all-snapping robot automatically turned incrementally, focussed and grabbed the photos in a continuous motion around the 360-degree vista.
The website describes the technical bit that followed:
The hundreds of high-resolution images were then transferred to the stitching server via a super fast broadband pipe. Once uploaded, the images are automatically joined and blended together. The actual processing of the final image was done on a special Fujitsu Technology Solutions Celsius R670 workstation with 192 gigabytes of RAM and 24 CPU cores.
If you were at the game – and hadn’t popped out for a nerve-settling beer feast when Martin was busy snapping away – you’re invited to Facebook tag yourself, along with the 17,400+ who have already done so.
As for us, we’ll be happier looking at modest camera phone pictures of Cardiff’s crushing defeat of Swansea in the Championship play offs. If we get there, of course.
