Large Panoramic Photography Helps Architects Get a Better Picture

by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

How do you . . . use digital, panoramic imaging in your practice?

Summary: Large, panoramic, digital photography is becoming more popular among architects looking to present higher-resolution, continuous images of site locations and interior spaces to clients. New York-based photographer Tom Watson, who specializes in digital, panoramic images of up to 360 degrees for architects, believes that the inherent quality of large panoramic images—not matched by regular digital imaging and competing software technology—can give architects an advantage in their practices.

To put the size of a large-format, panoramic image into perspective, each image is at least 140 megabytes (MB), and can go up as high as 500 MB. By contrast, a typical high-resolution JPEG file taken with a 5-megapixel digital camera is about 4 MB.

Rectilinear and continuous-rotation panorama
“The inherent quality of a large image file has the same dynamics as large-format film,” explains Watson, who was given a grant by the University of Virginia to participate in the writing of Best Practices Guide to Panorama Photography. Watson recommends two types of panoramas for architects: rectilinear and continuous rotation. A rectilinear panorama forms a clean, undisturbed image, says Watson. “The view camera shifts to the left and right, making a rectilinear panorama image with no motion artifacts [distortion]. Since the lens hasn’t moved, the panorama is perfectly rectilinear, contained within a single image, with no stitching or pixel manipulation. It’s ideal optical quality.” One rectangular full-resolution image can be 6,000 x 8,000 pixels and 276 MB. Rectilinear panoramas can show architects fine details in structures and landscapes.

Continuous rotation panorama, Watson says, is an excellent way of doing panoramas for interior spaces and landscapes at any degree of rotation. “It’s a powerhouse,” he says. With rotation and exposure programmed into the camera, a continuous rotation panorama is formed by a motorized adapter that goes onto the tripod and allows the camera’s rotation to start, stop, and return to a specific pixel, forming a precise image without stitching.

The technology
Watson creates both kinds of panoramas using a large-format view camera, 150 millimeter lens, and “digital scanner back” called Better Light, which connects to a laptop hard drive. Using the laptop, Watson can monitor the image and make adjustments, such as focus and depth of field. The scanner has 6,000-pixel-tall columns, which are seamlessly integrated and seen during a pre-scan. “The file is written on a continuous arc; the final image has no stitching artifacts,” Watson adds.

The Better Light workflow is done in a TIFF format and re-sampled for other uses into JPEGs. The high-resolution panorama can be loaded into Photoshop, and a “load-on-demand” program called Zoomify allows architects to view the large files over the Internet for zoom-and-pan interactive viewing. “The scanner back is now becoming more popular among architecture and landscape photographers.”

Going beyond a computer screen
Watson doesn’t suggest architects invest in digital panoramic imaging equipment, especially since the technology, as he says, “is constantly rolling over.” He does, however, encourage architects to increase their awareness of the availability of the technology.

“When an architect presents, they use a computer-generated demonstration for the client to ‘move around’ in a building. That’s common, but now they can show a real, large-format panoramic image of an existing building or landscape to the client.

“Everyone has a digital camera now, and people tend to think the pixels in an 8x10 image are all they need. Older architects are resistant to doing panoramas because they don’t understand the benefits to a 200-500 MB file,” Watson says. “Standard cameras are unsuitable for architecture because you don’t get the intense file size. But many architects are beginning to specify larger file size as a threshold for extra depth data beyond a computer screen environment. These images can make fantastic murals or create any kind of large print you want. And when the images go into Zoomify, the extra data can create nearly a 100 percent enlargement. It’s very exciting technology.”