We have been overwhelmed by the response to our recent Hyper Definition Image of Cape Town and appreciate so many people taking the time to write comments and send us mails.

As a show of our appreciation, we’ve dusted off another Hyper Definition Image we took from Signal Hill earlier this year and converted it to our new (slicker) viewing format.

It’s technically less impressive (2 gigapixels vs the 9 gigapixels of the more recent image), but I still like it more…….even though the stadium wasn’t done yet.

Remember: for the full experience, click on the full screen button (bottom right) and ZOOM !!!

Also, follow us on twitter @Daily_360 for updated on our next Hyper Definition Image – we’re working on another 4!!.

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When you work in the virtual tour business, you have the privilege to witness technological advances almost daily.
But every once in a while these changes combine to create an effect that can only be described as a Game Changer.
Today we are proud to share such an culmination of technological advances.

For a lack of a better word: we’ll call it a Hyper Definition Virtual Tour , but before we get to the technical details, have a look at it:

Virtual Africa presents: The highest definition picture ever taken of Cape Town.

It might not look like much on first glance, but try the following and be ready to be blown away: click on the full screen button (bottom right) and then ZOOM !!

Some details as to the size of this image:

• It was created by stitching 1850,fully zoomed (x 20 optical zoom), 10 MegaPixel images together.
• The time it took from the first shot (top left) and last shot (lower right) being taken, was about 3 hours.
• It’s 205 000 pixels wide.
• That equates to a printout of about 90 m x 15 m!
• The end result was a 25 GigaBytes RAW file which takes about an hour to open on my Macbook Pro.

Despite the size of the image, you can view it here because of a method called ’tiling’.

It works exactly the same way as mapping platforms such as Google Maps.

for example: When you view the whole of South Africa in Google Maps, the image obviously does not contain the high detail imagery of every roof top in the country. It’s only when you start zooming in, that Google Maps loads the relevant information.

The same happens here. We’ve taken our very big picture and created hundreds of thousand lower definition pictures (or tiles) from it. As you zoom into the picture, the only the appropriate tiles are loaded and this allows you to explore a very large image on a relatively slow internet connection. Simple, but smart.

In the coming months we hope to use images like these to organize data, visually.

Once again, similar to Google Maps, we can overlay information on top of this image to further enhance your exploration of Cape Town and the good news is that we are currently working on a few projects which will allow us to do just that.

In the mean time, we would love to hear your suggestions as to what we should call this kind of image/virtual tour…..

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We recently created a virtual tour of the KFM studio’s in Cape Town and it has been added to their website: www.kfm.co.za .

Ryan O’Connor (the morning show DJ) was our tour guide and, as you’ll see from the embedded video clips in the virtual tour, he is just as comfortable in front of the camera as behind the microphone.

From a technical perspective this tour is quite cool:

• it’s a full sphere – so you can check out the roof and the floor
• it has more than one embedded video in some of the scenes
• we’ve been able to clone Ryan (Cape Town will never be the same again) and you’ll find 4 of him on the studio shot

So if you’ve ever wondered what the inside of a radio station looked like – go wild!!

Go Full Screen

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Took a lovely hike up Lions Head yesterday.
If you haven’t done it before – it’s a brilliantly beautiful walk with views all around.
And the view from the top ….. well, you can judge for yourself:

Remember to click on the full screen icon – top right.

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Most people have heard of Fynbos.

We know it’s unique, we don’t always understand why, but we like the look of proteas and believe the experts when they say it’s important to conserve and protect these plants. Even UNESCO has pitched in by declaring the Cape Floral Kingdom a World Heritage Site.

One of the lesser know floral classification within this Kingdom of ours is called: Renosterveld (translate: ‘Renoster’ = Rhino; ‘veld’=  bush/plain/plants).

There are only a few pockets of Renosterveld left in the Western Cape and in this panorama, Justin Basson, the owner of Clara Anna Fontein and passionate Renosterveld conservationist, shows us some of the unique flora and fauna associated with the Renosterveld.

For me, the highlights of the video include the carnivorous plant and parrot beak tortoise.

(click and drag to look around and click on the video icon to see what Justin has to see)

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Now this is REALLY cool – even if I have to say so myself.

We recently took and compiled the biggest (highest definition) picture ever taken of Cape Town.

For those curious as to how we did it, I will post a ” How we did it” later in the week – so drop your email in the subscribtion box to the right if you want to get an email notification.

We will also have some very exciting news about how this picture can help you win a week for two in the fabulous Thornybush Game Reserve…… exciting !!  {update: go here for more info on the competition}

But before we get to that, we know you’d like some time to explore.

Zoom your heart out!!!

If you need some more space to explore – we created a dedicated page just for you.

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Seeing that we’re busy with a series on South African sport stadiums, I thought I’d share this panoramic image taken at the recent rugby test match between South Africa and Australia at Newlands Rugby Stadium.

I created it without a tripod – so the standard is not as high as usual – but it does give one an idea of ‘life on the Railway Stand’.

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