The largest (supposedly) panoramic picture in the world weighs in at 2.5 GIGAPIXELS – Holy Cow! TNO TPD in The Netherlands created the image. They explain their approach on their web site.

Wow, you can zoom wayyyy in and see great detail. Since its a set of 600 stitched images, there are also some neat artifacts from image overlap to see. Nifty stuff.

Oh, and the tool they use to create the zoom-able panorama? Zoomify – you can download it and use it, too.

Some facts and figures about the gigapixel image:

• Final image dimensions: 78.797 x 31.565 pixels
• Number of pixels in final image: 2,487,227,305 (2.5 gigapixel)
• Final image file format: 24-bit colour bitmap
• Final image file size: 7.5 GBytes
• Number of source images: 600
• Number of pixels in source images: 3,537,408,000 (600 images * 3008*1960)
• Lens focal length: 400 mm (equivalent to 600 mm on a 35 mm camera)
• Aperture: F22, Shutter speed: 1/100, ISO: 125
• Horizontal field of view of final image: 93 degrees
• Time required to capture component images: 1 hour and 12 minutes
• Time required to match overlapping images: 20 hours
• Time required to optimise project: 4 hours
• Time required to compose the image: 3 full days using 5 high-end pcs
• Time required to blend seams / correct misalignments / finalise image: 2 days

View the image (uses Flash player) at: http://www.tpd.tno.nl/smartsite966.html

(via the BBC and a feedster.com search for gigapixel)