wide section of Bloody Bay Wall, a vertical coral reef wall in the Cayman Islands. The image consisted of over 300 images that were manually stitched together from 4000ppi drum scans of Fuji Provia 100 transparency film. To make the image, a grid of 280 frames was photographed with 30% overlap to accurately cover the reef wall with full-spectrum light revealing the natural color and detail of the reef. Additional frames of marine life carefully photographed in the same grid composited in place to complete the scene. The on-site photography, requiring 23 dives and over 12 hours underwater to complete, was accomplished over a ten-day period by Jim Hellemn, with assistants Larry Hellemn and Peter Neubauer, using a neutrally-buoyant camera platform Hellemn designed specifically for the project. The post production of the image was completed in six months using multiple Macintosh G4 computers at Photographix in Poway, California, a digital graphics company owned by Hellemn. A zoomable version of the image was made available to the public in 2000 using the ER Mapper's ECW (file format) and Image Web Server software on a site operated by Fugro-Pelagos, allowing visitors to explore the life-size image. The project and the techniques used by Hellemn inspired researchers at Miami University to use similar methods to produce wide-coverage video mosaics to study coral reefs. The image was published in the October 2001 issue of National Geographic Magazine, "Portrait of a Coral Reef". Large print of conventional sized photograph For the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a print of a photograph of the British Royal Family during her Silver Jubilee was erected in front of the Sea Containers House in London while the building was under renovation. See also Earth Platinum, 2012 atlas References External links Official websites - official site - official site – official site – official site – official site Gigapixel photo mosaics Giga Lacrimosa - 80 gigapixel mosaic of a Bulgarian lawyer, entrepreneur, media mogul and politician - Delyan Peevski Queen Elizabeth - 33 gigapixel mosaic Further reading "The Sharpest Image" (Popular Science) - Story on the Gigapxl project Lists of photographs Photographs