# 50,000 megapixels?!!



## Chann

http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/14060

Hopefully harddrives will be 1,000 terabytes if this becomes mainstream.  

We'll see how photoshop can handle that file!

Chann


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## 412 Burgh

I ordered mine last week. Should be in this week! :lmao:


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## jake337

Advancement of technology is not stopping.  So the will use what they learned from this device to build the next, only smaller and more advanced, and again, and again, and again......Moore's Law.....


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## Marcelle

great lol now they just have to create printers printing at that resolution and not in x pass at 320dpi


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## sovietdoc

That's useless.  I actually expect the megapixel race to start slowing down when pro dslr's get closer to 100megapixels. Possibly even sooner.


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## PNWSGM

sovietdoc said:


> That's useless.  I actually expect the megapixel race to start slowing down when pro dslr's get closer to 100megapixels. Possibly even sooner.



How is this useless? I foresee this being used by NASA on multiple telescopes.


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## Derrel

50,000 megapickles??? Canon has announced a 129,000 megapickle camera to counter it!!!


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## Ballistics

PNWSGM said:


> sovietdoc said:
> 
> 
> 
> That's useless.  I actually expect the megapixel race to start slowing down when pro dslr's get closer to 100megapixels. Possibly even sooner.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How is this useless? I foresee this being used by NASA on multiple telescopes.
Click to expand...


Telescope megapixels are in the thousands.


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## Ballistics

Marcelle said:


> great lol now they just have to create printers printing at that resolution and not in x pass at 320dpi



This is something I have been curious about. Even at 50 megapixels, would a commercial printer really need more resolution? If I were to guess, I'd say that we would see no difference until very large prints that consumer printers could not make. Of course if someone knows the answer feel free to set me straight.


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## Ballistics

jake337 said:


> Advancement of technology is not stopping.  So the will use what they learned from this device to build the next, only smaller and more advanced, and again, and again, and again......Moore's Law.....



There's got to be a limitation somewhere, and I think even with technology advancing, that a line will be drawn somewhere for some reason.


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## amolitor

Most likely these images are overlapping. They're probably using multiple exposures and multiple cameras covering overlapping zones of the field. They're supposedly getting 510Mpixels out of each camera, if I am doing the math right, which sounds like between 25 and 100 exposures each. Then they smash all these exposures together and produce a computed high resolution image with substantially fewer than 50 gigapixels, but substantially more a single exposure from a single camera would provide.

If you shoot without an aliasing filter and get enough redundant images, you should be able to reconstruct the image right up to the diffraction limit of the lenses you've got. The telescope guys know all about this, I am informed. The keyword to search for is "supersampling"


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## pixmedic

amolitor said:


> Most likely these images are overlapping. They're probably using multiple exposures and multiple cameras covering overlapping zones of the field. They're supposedly getting 510Mpixels out of each camera, if I am doing the math right, which sounds like between 25 and 100 exposures each. Then they smash all these exposures together and produce a computed high resolution image with substantially fewer than 50 gigapixels, but substantially more a single exposure from a single camera would provide.
> 
> If you shoot without an aliasing filter and get enough redundant images, you should be able to reconstruct the image right up to the diffraction limit of the lenses you've got. The telescope guys know all about this, I am informed. The keyword to search for is "supersampling"



+50 internet points for actually knowing about that...Im going to Google supersampling now and check it out.  :thumbup::thumbup:


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## unpopular

There is no reason why Photoshop couldn't handle a 50gp file provided that there is enough memory and scratch space available. A scratch file that big would fragment the hell out of a hard drive, I'd imagine.


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## pixmedic

unpopular said:


> There is no reason why Photoshop couldn't handle a 50gp file provided that there is enough memory and scratch space available. A scratch file that big would fragment the hell out of a hard drive, I'd imagine.



maybe a swap partition like Linux uses? and a TON of memory...


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## unpopular

pixmedic said:


> maybe a swap partition like Linux uses? and a TON of memory...



I always recommend that people put the scratch disk on a separate partition, or better, a second drive. Photoshop tends to wreck havoc on hard drives, especially with very large files.\

This is perhaps less a concern today with gigabytes of memory and with digital cameras producing smaller files, people tended to scan film in at huge resolutions, but IMO it is still a good idea.


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## usayit

* You can have all the megapixels in the world but they are useless unless you have the optics to resolve that well

* Swap partition you want to avoid if possible.   You take a huge hit once you commit to disk.  For file sizes we are discussing here, then an appropriate server would be justified.  You wouldn't be processing files from a 50,000 mpixel camera on a regular Best Buy built desktop.  There are linux servers with memory in the 4+ terabytes.

* Linux and Mac OS X modern file-systems handle fragmentation fairly well.....  NTFS? hmmm....

* There is a market for even higher end storage for huge processing scientific communities.  www.violin-memory.com  Not something that any of us are most likely going to have in the basement.  This is the solution for "workspace".


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## unpopular

NTFS regardless, I still don't trust Photoshop scratch files, that's a huge amount of data being constantly read and written. If I were designing a high-end desktop for photoshop use, I'd still install a dedicated scratch, there is simply no reason not to.


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## usayit

unpopular said:


> NTFS regardless, I still don't trust Photoshop scratch files, that's a huge amount of data being constantly read and written. If I were designing a high-end desktop for photoshop use, I'd still install a dedicated scratch, there is simply no reason not to.



Of course.... Assuming your secondary "scratch" disk isn't on the same channel your other disks you will have better performance.  That's driven by the limitations of sharing a single bus and controller versus separate dedicated bus and controllers rather than anything else mentioned.  You do have your "scratch" disk on a separate channel... don't you?  .. right?      Hopefully adobe was smart about managing this space.

I personally wish windows would adopt the larger community of filesystems out there to leverage some of the magic that some performance focused groups have contributed...


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## unpopular

I don't have a second scratch ATM, but yes, that does make sense. But I am more thinking about likelihood of failure. If the secondary scratch fails, you can continue to run the scratch on the primary until you replace the secondary. From my experience, a large, frequent scratch files tend to wear down hard drives.

Performance-wise, it'd be better to put the primary on a separate channel, but would having it on the same channel degrade performance?


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## amolitor

usayit said:


> * You can have all the megapixels in the world but they are useless unless you have the optics to resolve that well



The point of computed photography using multiple exposures and multiple cameras is specifically to transcend the limits of the equipment, and it works quite well (I am told).


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## jake337

Ballistics said:


> jake337 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Advancement of technology is not stopping.  So the will use what they learned from this device to build the next, only smaller and more advanced, and again, and again, and again......Moore's Law.....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There's got to be a limitation somewhere, and I think even with technology advancing, that a line will be drawn somewhere for some reason.
Click to expand...



Only if you believe in that imaginary line.  


What?  My new "lovers telephone" is now electric?

What?  I can send this information over a telephone line?

What?  I can watch streaming live movies and Tv on this cell phone?

What?  This phone has how many processors?


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## unpopular

amolitor said:


> usayit said:
> 
> 
> 
> * You can have all the megapixels in the world but they are useless unless you have the optics to resolve that well
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The point of computed photography using multiple exposures and multiple cameras is specifically to transcend the limits of the equipment, and it works quite well (I am told).
Click to expand...


If that is the direction this is taking then it's not a "camera" in the same sense as we're thinking it is, but rather a "camera" in the abstract sense of a "composition of optical elements used to derive a single image".


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## Ballistics

jake337 said:


> Ballistics said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jake337 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Advancement of technology is not stopping.  So the will use what they learned from this device to build the next, only smaller and more advanced, and again, and again, and again......Moore's Law.....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There's got to be a limitation somewhere, and I think even with technology advancing, that a line will be drawn somewhere for some reason.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Only if you believe in that imaginary line.
> 
> 
> What?  My new "lovers telephone" is now electric?
> 
> What?  I can send this information over a telephone line?
> 
> What?  I can watch streaming live movies and Tv on this cell phone?
> 
> What?  This phone has how many processors?
Click to expand...


 I tell you what, you tell me what you think I meant, this way I can better understand this post.


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## jake337

Ballistics said:


> jake337 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ballistics said:
> 
> 
> 
> There's got to be a limitation somewhere, and I think even with technology advancing, that a line will be drawn somewhere for some reason.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Only if you believe in that imaginary line.
> 
> 
> What?  My new "lovers telephone" is now electric?
> 
> What?  I can send this information over a telephone line?
> 
> What?  I can watch streaming live movies and Tv on this cell phone?
> 
> What?  This phone has how many processors?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I tell you what, you tell me what you think I meant, this way I can better understand this post.
Click to expand...



You stated there is a line to be drawn somewhere.

If we went back in time and spoke to the person who first invented telephones, told them futures phones would be computers, they would say "What the hell is a computer?"

I'm simply saying the only barriers in the evolution of technology are our own internal doubts.


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## Ballistics

jake337 said:


> Ballistics said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jake337 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Only if you believe in that imaginary line.
> 
> 
> What?  My new "lovers telephone" is now electric?
> 
> What?  I can send this information over a telephone line?
> 
> What?  I can watch streaming live movies and Tv on this cell phone?
> 
> What?  This phone has how many processors?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I tell you what, you tell me what you think I meant, this way I can better understand this post.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> You stated there is a line to be drawn somewhere.
> 
> If we went back in time and spoke to the person who first invented telephones, told them futures phones would be computers, they would say "What the hell is a computer?"
Click to expand...


I'm not talking about limitations implemented by the lack of imagination, but necessity. I'm sure there is a "what's the point?" advancement coming to cameras very soon if there isn't one on them right now.


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## jake337

Ballistics said:


> jake337 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ballistics said:
> 
> 
> 
> I tell you what, you tell me what you think I meant, this way I can better understand this post.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You stated there is a line to be drawn somewhere.
> 
> If we went back in time and spoke to the person who first invented telephones, told them futures phones would be computers, they would say "What the hell is a computer?"
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'm not talking about limitations implemented by the lack of imagination, but necessity. I'm sure there is a "what's the point?" advancement coming to cameras very soon if there isn't one on them right now.
Click to expand...



I see, I see...  

People may laugh but I can't wait for High megapixel cell phone cameras.  Why?  The digital zoom may become usable!


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## unpopular

^ if you can get past the noise.


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## EDL

Use SSD's...fragmentation isn't an issue on them and they are many times faster than mechanical drives.

Just remember, Bill Gates said no one would ever need more than 640KB of memory....

As for megapixels and lenses resolving them, I can see some kind of electronically alterable lenses in the future.  Able to alter their shape to get the best possible resolution on the fly as you vary the zoom, aperture, etc.

One thing I have near absolute faith in is man's drive and ability to further technology.


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## 2WheelPhoto

No stopping the technology train


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## usayit

EDL said:
			
		

> Use SSD's...fragmentation isn't an issue on them and they are many times faster than mechanical drives.
> 
> Just remember, Bill Gates said no one would ever need more than 640KB of memory....
> 
> As for megapixels and lenses resolving them, I can see some kind of electronically alterable lenses in the future.  Able to alter their shape to get the best possible resolution on the fly as you vary the zoom, aperture, etc.
> 
> One thing I have near absolute faith in is man's drive and ability to further technology.



Exactly what do you think violin-memory makes (mentioned inmy previous post)?  non commercial SSD are not the silver bullet you make them out to be.


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## EDL

Oh please, are you suggesting that someone go out and buy a commercial, rack mount type flash memory device?

SSD's are perfectly fine for home users to run Photoshop.  As mentioned, no fragmentation issues and much, much faster than mechanical drives.  Even more so in a RAID array or self contained RAID in PCI configurations.  Current MLC flash technology is every bit as reliable as mechanical drives for drive life, even exceeding them in some cases.


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## jake337

unpopular said:


> ^ if you can get past the noise.



Who cares! It's just a cell phone!  Just saying it would be cool.


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## amolitor

jake337 said:


> People may laugh but I can't wait for High megapixel cell phone cameras.  Why?  The digital zoom may become usable!



These things exist.

The Online Photographer: It's the Future Calling

Nokia's built a 41Mpixel phone camera that uses pixel binning for noise reduction and loads of pixels for digital zoom. This is the future, and it is pulling into the station NOW.

Edited: Awesome job quoting people, Molitor-You-Idiot.


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## 2WheelPhoto

amolitor said:


> jake337 said:
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> Ballistics said:
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> These things exist.
> 
> The Online Photographer: It's the Future Calling
> 
> Nokia's built a 41Mpixel phone camera that uses pixel binning for noise reduction and loads of pixels for digital zoom. This is the future, and it is pulling into the station NOW.
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> 
> 
> Smaller sensors lack depth of field in comparison, but I'm sure they're working on a solution to squash that too
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> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


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## unpopular

Certainly the Nokia 808 produces good results for a cell phone, I was expecting it to be a cluster of noise - but it's pretty comparable to any other camera, noise and resolution-wise. By the time the image is reduced to an 8x10, you'll probably have something useful.

But you're not going to get a 41mp, no wall-size prints, really, but 41mp of leaves a lot of room for data to throw away and smooth things out.

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_808_pureview_video_and_camera_samples-news-3905.php


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## AJB91

can't wait to get my hands on one of those badboys XD


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## TonysTouch

Japanese cell phones have taken camera phones to another level. There was one model that was a P&S camera with a built in phone. Not a cell phone with a built in camera. It was similar to Nikon's new Coolpix.


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## bentrod

Chann said:


> Electrical Engineers Build Gigapixel Camera :: NASA Tech Briefs
> 
> Hopefully harddrives will be 1,000 terabytes if this becomes mainstream.
> 
> We'll see how photoshop can handle that file!
> 
> 
> Chann




So, how many 360K floppies will I need to load that into my 1984 IBM XT?


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## unpopular

TonysTouch said:


> Japanese cell phones have taken camera phones to another level. There was one model that was a P&S camera with a built in phone. Not a cell phone with a built in camera. It was similar to Nikon's new Coolpix.



I think Samsung is doing stuff like this.


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## snowbear

< . . . waiting for the Lytro fan>


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