Killgore661, Mars and some Lego

“What does Lego, an undercover experimenter in the Bristol area, the planet Mars and NASA have in common?

Quite a bit as it happens.

Kilgore661 is a man who lives in the southwest of the United Kingdom and he is a man with an undiluted passion.

Kilgore661 is a born tinkerer and experimenter. He learned from the Internet about a community project that is shared by many people around the world but which is broadly overseen by the Carnegie Melton University in the United States, NASA, Google and the National Geographic magazine. All these institutions (is Google an institution?) have got behind a major project called the Global Connection Project.

The Global Connection Project comprises a number of imaging projects ranging from practical support for disaster relief efforts, publishing National Geographic content in Google Earth and creating gigapixel (very big, if not huge) panoramic images for sharing and exploration.

And it was gigapixel panoramic images that fired Kilgore661’s enthusiasm and imagination.

So what on Mars is a gigapixel?

The numbers involved are staggeringly large so hold on to your mathematical hat.

A pixel is short for picture element and, if you look at your computer’s monitor, the pixel is one those small elements (or those little blocks to you and me) that go to make up the images you see on your screen.

It takes roughly 1 million pixel blocks to fill up your computer screen. An average digital camera these days would take image sizes of between 8 and 10 megapixels. So, in short, a megapixel is 1000 pixels and a gigapixel is one thousand megapixels. So, for giga read lots.

In the digital camera world you would need to pay big bucks for your bangs. The Hasselblad CFII-39 camera – which costs in excess of £12,000 (US$20,000) – can capture a paltry 39 Megapixels. That is up to 125 times the size of the images you or I take with our smaller cameras.

But those numbers, big though they might seem, are small change in gigapixel world. The largest digital image in the world is a picture of Harlem in New York and that image weighs in at an amazing 13 Gigapixels! Imagine - you would need 39 monitors or more to view that one image!

Why would anyone want an image that large?

The story starts on the Planet Mars.

Images taken by cameras on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover were so detailed they gave viewers the impression they were, themselves, flying over the surface of Mars.

The idea for gigapixel cameras for the Mars Rover was developed by a team led by two scientists - Randy Sargent and Illah Nourbakhsh. Sargent is a Senior Systems Scientist who worked at Carnegie Mellon West University and also at NASA’s Ames Research Centre. Nourbakhsh is an Associate Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The team behind the Mars Rover camera system realised that they could use this same technology back here on Earth.

Before long the Mars Rover team were working with Google Earth, the National Geographic and others. Google Earth images could be linked to information supplied by the National Geographic magazine and displayed on web pages. A small army of volunteers began supplying gigapixel images to Google and the National Geographic so they could be incorporated. Kilgore661 enlisted in that army. But there was a problem. Kilgore661 did not have a gigapixel camera system.

At the outset there were very few gigapixel robots in the world and certainly none of them were in the United Kingdom. Kilgore661 had two choices. He would either wait until a gigapixel robot became available or he would make his own. He decided to make his own.

But here’s the second problem, Killgore661 did not have the thousands of pounds he would need to develop his own gigapixel camera. But he did have a Lego set.

A gigapixel robot camera system is a complex machine but the way it works is relatively simple. A standard compact camera is mounted on the gigapixel robot. The robot sits on top of a standard camera tripod and, automatically, it turns the camera to the left and right or up and down in predetermined steps. In the jargon, the robot pans and tilts the camera. So, once the height and width of the required panorama is programmed into the gigabit robot, the camera takes many overlapping photographs of a panoramic view from, say, a mountainside. At each stage after the robot causes the camera to capture a digital image, after the image is taken, the robot moves slightly to the left or right – or up or down – and it then captures another image. And so it goes on until hundreds of images of the panorama have been captured and stored.

The story doesn’t end there. Once those hundreds of images have been captured by the digital camera they are downloaded into a powerful computer where they are processed by a special software package which ‘stitches’ the overlapping images together seamlessly to make one huge, very detailed and breathtaking gigapixel image.

At the outset Kilgore661 found himself in a chicken-egg situation. The only people who could get their hands on the gigapixel robot were, quite literally, rocket scientists and, without a gigapixel robot, Kilgore661 could not create and supply gigapixel images to the project. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

In earlier times young engineers cut their teeth on Meccano. Born long after Meccano had gone out of fashion, Kilgore661’s choice of building technology had to be the old Lego set he had as a child. There was no money in the budget for anything else. It was all he had.

On the road to success Kilgore661 encountered technical disaster after technical disaster. People laughed at him. He was seen as the archetypical mad professor. And who can blame people for smirking when they saw many of Kilgore661’s early attempts scattered across the floor in pieces.

Many times Kilgore661 felt like giving in but he was a man with both a passion, a mission and a Lego set.

Undeterred by early and sometimes catastrophic setbacks Kilgore661 persisted and eventually using Lego, string, bits of wood, bent metal, plasticine and glue, he produced a gigapixel robot that worked – and worked well.

Kilgore661’s working prototype wasn’t elegant, it wasn’t a masterpiece of mechanical engineering and it almost certainly would not win any design awards in today’s high technology world but that didn’t matter. It worked, it worked consistently and it produced excellent results. It was a triumph of spirit, hard work and determination over adversity. It was, in short, a very British story.

Word of Kilgore661’s experiments soon spread. Using the Internet he communicated with other gigapixelers around the world and this brings us to the second and very important part of the gigapixel project and the overarching Global Connection Project. The gigapixel projects and all the other projects under the Global Connection Project umbrella are community projects. The glue that holds all these projects together are the people involved at all levels. The ethos behind this project is that anyone who cares to be involved, can be involved. This is not some huge corporate endeavour aimed at making people millionaires. This is a social project that unites people who have a common cause.

At all stages Kilgore661’s efforts with Lego and assorted other leftover bits were supported spiritually by a mass of people around the world who took Kilgore661’s work seriously and helped him as he developed his prototype gigapixel robot. Unwittingly, Kilgore661 had become a respected member of the global scientific community.

The very good news for Kilgore661 is that his many months of efforts with his Lego gigapixel robot were recognised and, two months ago, he received a state of the art gigapixel robot from Gigaplan, the body which oversees gigapixel robot development.

And so, if you are wandering around the UK’s West Country and you see a contented and satisfied young man standing next to a tripod mounted gizmo that is whirring and clicking away, you will have been privileged to see Kilgore661 in action.

The story doesn’t stop here. Kilgore661 is committed to the gigapixel robot project and he sees huge potential for the gigapixel robot technology. This is, as Kilgore661 puts it, just the start and it is the tip of a very large iceberg. Gigapixel technology is just one of many technologies that are taking the commercial, scientific, medical and entertainment worlds by storm.

The gigapixel technology will soon be available for us all to use. And, unlike the Hasselblad camera that cost many thousands of dollars or pounds, the gigapixel robot technology will probably cost no more than a few hundred pounds.

Suddenly, you can get a whole lot more pixels for your dollar, pound or yen. And here’s the thing. One of the people who is leading the charge here in the UK just might have an old box of Lego under his arm. Laugh if you dare. We owe much to Kilgore661.

Taking Sanctuary With My Digital SLR

Traveling on holiday with camera gear can present problems; there are the usual things to consider, such as having sufficient memory cards and batteries so that you can take photos in the first place. Then you need the supporting equipment such as electrical leads to charge the batteries, a bag to carry the camera in, and perhaps something to back up the images with until you get back and can load them into the computer at home.

‘Right, no real problem’, I hear you say. Okay, now add a few extra elements to the equation. Firstly, there will be at least ten days where there won’t be any electricity; battery life can be severely reduced by temperature; laptops are just going to be too awkward and fragile to carry; dust and condensation can affect the camera. And, just one more thing, in addition to carrying your camera gear, you will also need to carry a rucksack, warm clothing, water bottles, and a pair of walking poles.

Oh, and did I mention that you would be walking every day, camping every night, and potentially facing some seriously cold temperatures? Gets a bit more complicated now doesn’t it?

This was just the scenario I was facing as I packed for a trip to the Himalayas. No ordinary holiday, this was a trek into the heart of the Nepal, taking in some of the most majestic and dramatic scenery on earth; to stand in a natural amphitheater of snow capped mountains known as the Annapurna Sanctuary.

The easiest option would be to take a small compact camera. No real issue with batteries and small and light enough to fit in a jacket pocket. But, it’s no good; I am after all, a passionate photographer. And those of you have been smitten by the bug, will recognise that to make the most of the potential image making opportunities I was going to have to take some serious photographic equipment.

After soul searching, I decided on taking a Nikon D100 digital SLR (a relic now, but cutting edge a few years ago), a 28-200 zoom (no lens changing and reduced problems with dust on the sensor), and backed it up with a Hassleblad Xpan (a panoramic film camera) and two lenses.

I carried the cameras and lenses in two Lowepro holster bags slung across my body in a bandolier style. This allowed me to have my trek poles in my hand with my rucksack full of the normal walking paraphernalia. Taking photographs is important to me, but equally so is personal safety, therefore, I always make sure that I am adequately kitted out for mountain weather and that means having layers of protective clothing.

I wouldn't’t have passed muster for the fashion police, and I must have appeared terribly over laden as the concerned trek crew often wanted to carry my rucksack for me. But despite appearances, I was actually quite comfortable. More importantly, I had easy access to my cameras. The only compromise I made was to put my tripod (a compact carbon fibre Gitzo) in my hold all, which would be transported by porters during the day along with the camping equipment, but letting me have access to it at sunset, and provided I got up early enough – sunrise.

To get over the issue of charging batteries, when out on trek, I took a number of spares. I also had a handful of memory cards and backed up the images each night onto a Flashtrax portable hard drive, which was also battery driven.

Out on trek the picture taking opportunities were everywhere. My first few days entailed climbing countless steps, along paths through terraced fields where the local villagers were harvesting crops. The late monsoon rain clouds prevented me from seeing the mountains, but the constant rise in elevation and the shortness of breath reminded me that they weren't’t far away. The biggest problem in the early days was keeping the camera dry. A plastic bag, with a hole cut in it and secured with a rubber band acted as an impromptu rain cover (no expense spared). The other trick I learned was not to stand for too long in the grass by the side of the path - the leeches soon hone in on body heat.

It wasn’t all gloom though. The grey skies provided a wonderful soft light for portraits, and passing through villages, I managed to capture images of the local people. It’s always worth spending a few moments to talk with people before taking their image; it often leads to them being more relaxed.

A couple of days later, after a particularly wet and unpleasant day, the weather started to pick up. As we wound our way though the edge of a forest I saw my first glimpse of Machhapuchhare the ‘Fish Tail’ mountain. From this angle it was easy to see how it got it’s name, the twin white peaks punched into the clear patch of blue sky above. That evening, camping on a terrace, I saw the mountain again. This time it was dark orange reflecting the setting sun.

We continued to climb for another couple of days, and after crossing some impossibly narrow swing bridges, and other impromptu wooden bridges over swollen rivers, we headed into the Sanctuary to reach the base camp for the ‘Fish Tail’. No sooner had the tents been pitched, it started to snow and the clouds swooped in from the valley below to envelop us in a grey coat of mist. There was nothing for it but to hope things would get better.

That evening, as I emerged from my tent, the clouds started to part. ‘Fish Tail’ put on a spectacular show as it changed colours with the setting sun. In between changes the clouds swooped in and out like theatre curtains. The camera was in overdrive, and I was glad of the tripod. I waited in the cold; the same spot where Michael Palin had stood a few months earlier when filming his series Himalaya, and after the sun had set, was rewarded with the magenta cast of the alpenglow. It really was something special.

The next morning we headed further up into the Sanctuary to reach Annapurna Base Camp. At just below four and a half thousand metres, the air was thin cold and invigorating. It was a glorious walk, the sun had emerged to burn off the clouds and the clarity after the wet weather was stunning. That afternoon, the clouds once again played hide and seek with the mountains, but it added to the drama. Waiting patiently with my camera and tripod I was once again rewarded with amazing photographic opportunities. I retired to my tent frozen to the core, but satisfied that I had seen something very special.

Rising before dawn, I pitched my tripod in a spot I had scouted out the day before. Standing on the lip of the glacier below I had a clear view of Annapurna One, which at over eight thousand metres, towered above me. I spent the next two hours out there watching and photographing the dawn light play across the snows of the mountain. Magical just does not describe it.

Reluctantly I headed back to camp to feast on porridge, eggs and chappti, and lots of hot coffee. Packing up my gear for the descent I turned to look at the mountains once again. By now, the solitary spot I had occupied was starting to get busy as others trekkers had arrived. I was happy that I had seen the best of the light, but wait, there was another shot to be had. Pushing up my exposure to cope for the bright snow that I knew would underexpose the shot, I managed to get some silhouettes of trekkers against the mountain.

Leaving the Sanctuary, I knew I had been somewhere special. The moments I had enjoyed were already memories and new experiences, sights and sounds, were to be enjoyed on the rest of the trip. Of course those memories along with others were still fresh, and would be for years to come, but that’s the joy of photography, no matter how distant those memories become, one look at those images and I am transported right back there to relive those wonderful moments.