Microsoft Image Composite Editor

[varjohaltia]

Since the abilities of a lot of existing bitmap formats aren't well suited for stupidly huge panoramas/gigapixel images or high dynamic range composites with 48-bit color depths, there's been development of new formats that pack better than jpeg, support deeper and wider color, and smarter tiling. As part of this Microsoft Research has released a really neat and free tool, Microsoft Image Composite Editor that allows you to output to some of these formats. Bottom line is that it does panorama stitching really well, and for free.

Since the resulting pictures were kind of huge, I uploaded two panoramas in the HD Photo, a.k.a. JPEG XR format. The viewer requires Silverlight.

Composite of Eagle Lage near Tahoe, California.

Composite of Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe, California.

Below a plain old Flickr version:

Comments

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

I remember standing very near there, and also near the coast - and sailing into the entrance from the blue vastness of that lake.

If I recall correctly, you're almost directly opposite the lake from the field where the opening to _Bonanza_ was filmed. Can you imagine the endless miles of timber, blue sky, and verdant fields that must still have ruled then?

Though Tahoe was a bit one-note compared to our other visits to California, it was still good times. What an epic state.

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

These days, alas, Tahoe retains very little of its natural state save Rubicon Point and a few other parks. If I had about four more days, I probably would've tried to do something dawn/dusky with the mini-Vegas on the Nevada side. However, if you go outwards from Tahoe, there are tons of awesome hikes and alpine lakes to be found. If you're really hard core, there's the Tahoe Rim Trail (http://www.tahoerimtrail.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=202) :-)

But yes, I do want to go back and do more exploring of the coast again, the redwood forests, the deserts...