Church of Christ the King - 6 Metres Above the Ground Panorama

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Taking images from above the ground adds a slightly different perspective to panoramas. Using a D80 with a 10.5mm lens the image to the right is a test shot taken 6 metres above the ground.

Within the scene are the three Grade II listed buildings the phoneboxes set against the backdrop of the Church of Christ the King in Bloomsbury.

The Red Phonebox is a classic design by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who amoungest other notable buildings also designed Battersea Power Station. The K6 "Jubilee" model pictured here was built to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935.

View the panorama in Quicktime VR (4.2Mb)

You can view a panorama taken inside the phonebox via our previous post.

South Pacific Railway Panorama

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On a drive out of San Francisco, on route to the Napa Valley, we came across an abandoned train which turned out to be part of the South Pacific Coast Railroad.

Wikipedia describes the railway as -

"a 3 ft (914 mm) gauge narrow gauge steam railroad running between Santa Cruz, California and Alameda, with a ferry connection in Alameda to San Francisco. The railroad was created as the Santa Clara Valley Railroad, founded by local strawberry growers as a way to get their crops to market in San Francisco and provide an alternative to the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1876, James Graham Fair, a Comstock Lode silver baron, bought the line. He extended the line into the Santa Cruz Mountains in order to capture the significant lumber traffic coming out of the redwood forests.

In 1887, the line was acquired by the Southern Pacific and the gauge standardized. In later years, the segment running between San Jose and Santa Cruz was used by SP's "Suntan Special" which came down the San Francisco Peninsula and took passengers right to the beach and boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Service was disrupted by the 1906 Earthquake^[1]. The tracks through the Santa Cruz Mountains suffered major damage during a storm in the winter of 1940, and the line was abandoned the same year."

The panorama was captured in High Dynamic Range giving it a slightly unreal look:


We dont normally tweak our panoramas but this scene works well in sepia - providing a slighly surreal look at the old South Pacific Railroad:

You can view both the High Dynamic Range panorama (3.62Mb) in Quicktime Virtual Reality and the Sepia Version (3.31Mb).

Tokyo Tower Panorama

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Tokyo Tower is located in Shiba Park, Minato-ku, Tokyo, completed in 1958 and standing 332.6m high it is the tallest man manmade structure in Japan. Whereas the Eiffel Tower in Paris acts as a central landmark, the Tokyo Tower is not quite as successful, despite being an almost exact copy.

The Eiffel Tower's strength as a piece of iconic architecture is underpinned by the ability to stand directly underneath the tower in a grand statement to public place. Tokyo Tower, on the other hand, has built directly under the Tower to provide entertainment facilities and shopping, this greatly distracts from the Tower's structure and thus the impact compared to the Eiffel.

View the quicktime panorama of Tokyo Tower (2Mb) - Note the shopping complex underneath the towers expanse. Its not to say we dident like it - it is a fantastic structure - its just that the pressures on landuse have taken away the chance to walk under the tower and thus have taken away the power of its architecture.

Sapporo Japan Panorama

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Furukawa Hall, Sapporo, Japan is is one of Hokkaido University's three designated Historical Buildings. Notable for its use of French Renaissance architecture, it now houses faculty members' research rooms. The panorama was taken on the way to a lecture we gave to HitatchiSoft detailing the Virtual London model and the research in general featured in this blog.


We would like to take this opportunity to thank the photographers and designers behind Panorama-Journey.com and Quicktime Brewery for coming along, both the sites are well worth a visit and feature some stunning panoramas.

View the fullscreen panorama of Sapporo, Japan (3.6Mb)

View the panorama taken at the end of the lecture (2.6Mb)

Leadenhall Street London Panorama

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Located at 12 Leadenhall Street the Lloyds building's roots hark back to the 1980's building boom in the city and the move towards new technologies in building infrastructure. Completed in 1986 at a cost of £75,000,000 and designed by Richard Rogers, the building is a suitable headquarters for Lloyds who have been trading since 1688.

Across from Lloyds is the Swiss Re building, more formally known as 30 St Mary Axe the building was completed in 2003 and officially opened in 2004. At 180m its inspiration can be traced back to the Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters built in 1975 by Fosters and Partners.

Click the image to view a larger version, view the Quicktime panorama of Leadenhall Street (2.7Mb), or view other images at the digitalurban flickr group.

Aerial Suburbia Panorama

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Suburbia is a surreal experience when your usually based in the city 24/7. The panorama above highlights the quiet estates which are typical of 80's newbuild in the United Kingdom.

Click the image to view a larger version, view suburbia in Quicktime virtual reality (2.9Mb)or view via the digitalurban flickr group, simply login or set up a Flickr account and click here to join the DigitalUrban Group.

Alexandra Palace High Dynamic Range Panorama

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First opened as “The People’s Palace” in 1873, Alexandra Palace provided the Victorians with a great environment and recreation centre. Just sixteen days after it’s opening, the Palace, which had already attracted over 120,000 visitors, was destroyed by a fire in the dome.

On 1st May 1875, less than 2 years after the destruction of the original building, a new Palace opened. Covering 7 acres, it was centred on the Great Hall, home to the mighty Willis Organ which was driven by two steam engines and vast bellows.

After certain financial difficulties, an Act of Parliament in 1900 created the Alexandra Palace and Park Trust. The Act required the Trustees to maintain the Palace and Park and make them "available for the free use and recreation of the public forever".

In 1935, the BBC leased the eastern part of the building from which the first public television transmissions were made in 1936. Alexandra Palace was the main transmitting centre for the BBC until 1956, when it was used exclusively for news broadcasts.

You can view the panorama in QuickTime VR (4.1Mb).

London Bus Panorama (Top Deck)

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Experience the glamour and luxury of the transport we use at Digital Urban to capture our London data with our new Top Deck of a London Bus panorama. Note the luxury seat covers and deep set grime from a bus that doesn't look like it has been cleaned in months.

Still, its only 80p a ride so you cant expect much...

You can view the bus panorama in it full glory here (2.1Mb).

Tower 42 London Panorama

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Tower 42 is the tallest building in the City of London at 183 metres compared to 179.8 metres for its neighboring 30 St Mary Axe.

Built in 1980 by Architects Seifert and Partners, Tower 42 was originally home to the Natwest Bank with rumours that its unique shape mirrored the Natwest's logo at the time. This seems to be however an urban myth, the building is now an office complex with a restaurant on the 42nd floor offering views of London.


The panorama is captured using the same bracketing technique as the previous Swiss Re image.

We also feature Tower 42 in Google Earth as a 3D Model, you can read the post on it and download the KMZ from here.



You can view the panorama in QuickTime VR (3.4Mb).

Swiss Re, London, High Dynamic Ranging Panorama

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The Swiss Re building, more formally known as 30 St Mary Axe, was completed in 2003 and officially opened in 2004. At 180m its inspiration can be traced back to the Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters built in 1975 by Fosters and Partners.

The panorama is captured using High Dynamic Ranging, known as HDR, based on 21 photographs from a single nodal point. Bracketing is used to under and over expose each location, resulting in 3 images per 'click point' on the panorama.

Combining these images, prior to stitching, provides a wider range of shadow depth and balanced lighting compared to normal exposures. This is especially important in panoramic imaging due to the range of light levels across a scene.



The panorama can be viewed in full screen via the QuickTime plugin, allowing you to look around the scene in 360x180 degrees at high resolution (2.9Mb)