Published in Physics World, 20 Jun 2012
Researchers in the US have unveiled a 1 gigapixel camera, which has about five times as many pixels as today’s best professional digital cameras and nearly 100 times as many as a compact consumer camera. Moreover, the camera has a much smaller aperture than other gigapixel devices – meaning that, unlike other sensors, this latest camera pushes the fundamental resolution limit of optical devices. The team has also shown how the device could be used in several applications including surveillance, astronomy and environmental monitoring.
In the past, gigapixel images have be formed by stitching together 1000 or more megapixel images, or by scanning a sensor across a large-format image. Acquiring “snapshot” gigapixel images is trickier, but a few options exist or are in development. One of these is the 3.2 gigapixel digital camera that will sit within the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), an optical device currently under construction in northern Chile. […]
The rest of this article is available here.