130 megapixel panorama of Iceland volcano eruption site

Below is a whopping 130 Megapixel panoramic image (34080 x 3827 px) which is perhaps the biggest volcano eruption picture on the web. It depicts the ash covered glacier eruption site Fimmvörðuháls (Fimmvorduhals) in Iceland on 30 March 2010.
Use mouse and scroll wheel to pan and zoom, like in Google Maps. Use the "Toggle Full Page" button for maximum experience! A photographic Iceland volcano travel report with eruption pictures can be found here -->.

Use mouse to zoom and pan. Use most right button for full screen. Seadragon Embed
Iceland, Fimmvörðuháls, 30 March 2010, 11:13



Tips to view the panorama

Have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Use mouse and scroll wheel in the black box to zoom in and out. Hover your cursor in the black box and navigation buttons will pop up. Please note that the time it will take to show the fine details depends on your internet connection speed. Try the "Toggle Full Page" button at the right to maximize the picture in your screen. To maximize sharpness zoom in fully and then zoom out slightly. Be patient if large watermark texts are still visible. It is still downloading images with fine details in the background.



Icelandic features to be seen in this megapixel panorama

From far left to far right the following features can be recognized:
      - The Eyjafjallajökull volcano with ice cap (still intact with no signs of what to come)
      - Valley ..
      - The new eruption cone with lava fountain
      - Hot steaming and degassing lava flows and lava fields
      - Mountain range ..
      - Ash covered snow and ice with vehicle tracks
      - Super jeep and snowmobile tracks
      - Mýrdalsjökull glacier and ice cap with (hidden) Katla volcano
If you are familiar with this area and have any comments or additions of any feature that can be seen on this picture please let me know. Your help is appreciated -->.



How to generate a zoomable panorama

Here a brief outline of my way to generate a zoomable panoramic image. All pictures were shot at fixed focal length from a tripod. I used a Canon EOS 5D mkII with EF 17-40 F4.0 lens. A number of software tools was used. The 12 raw pictures were optimised and converted in tiff with Adobe Raw Converter. The tiff files were fed into Panotools to compose a 300° panoramic image. Some manual stitching was necessary. The output is a single 900 MB 16 bit tiff with a size of about 35000 x 3200 pixels. The tiff file was cropped and checked for large imperfections in PS. Note: PSCS4 has jpg file size limitations. The resulting tiff file was converted via the Microsoft's DeepZoom Tools command line tool DZComposer. Note: DeepZoomComposer GUI software has file size limitations so command line tool was used. The DZComposer output is a 140 MB piramidic file set of 2850 files. This piramidic file set is suitable for web viewing via Seadragon Ajax JavaScript technology. It took a while but I am pleased with the result: a unique megapixel volcano eruption panorama picture which can be viewed via the web.


Patrick Koster
March - October 2010

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