Gigapan.org.......wow

There is no shortage of sites with great digital pictures on the web, but gigapan seems to offer something a little different. The images offers a panoramic view composed of many picutures allowing the viewer to move around the picture as well as zoom in to areas. The photo resolution is amazing. The only drawback I found was because the resolution is so impressive and the image is huge, it may take some time for it to load in your browser. But the payoff may well be worth the wait. 

One of the recently featured panoramas is David Bergman's President Obama's Inaugural Address. This panorama was created from over 200 images with a final size of 1,474 megapixels. I was able to zoom in on the President as well as the snipers positioned on rooftops on buildings in the distance. The panoramas can even be downloaded and viewed in GoogleEarth (version 4.2 or higher). Check out the image from the Mount Rushmore panorama in Google Earth below.

This site can allow you bring images into the classroom in stunning detail.