The National Museum of Amsterdam has published an interactive photo of Rembrandt’s painting “The Night Watch” with a stunning resolution of 717 gigapixels. The museum claims that this photo is the highest resolution image of the artwork ever taken.
This photo was prepared as part of “Operation Night Watch”, the largest and most comprehensive study of Rembrandt’s masterpiece, The Night Watch. The goal of this program, which started in 2019, is to preserve this painting optimally for the future. Last year, this team used artificial intelligence to reconstruct parts of the painting that had been destroyed in the past due to numerous attacks on the painting.
Highest resolution photos of works of art
With a resolution of 717 gigapixels and 717 billion pixels, the distance between two pixels in the image is only 5 micrometers (0.005 mm), meaning that each pixel in the image is smaller, according to the Rijksmuseum. It is from human red blood cells.
The museum used a Hasselblad H6D-400MS 100-megapixel camera to capture 8,439 individual photos, each measuring 5.5 cm by 4.1 cm. These photos were then stitched together using artificial intelligence to form the final image. The final file size of this gigantic image reaches 5.6 terabytes.
Single shots had a depth of field of 125 micrometers (1.8 mm). Raikes Museum explained that to ensure that each photo is in focus, the surface of the painting was first adjusted using a laser scan and a camera before taking the photo. Immediately after taking each photo, a neural network checked the color and resolution of the image.
Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum or Imperial Museum, said: “Once again, Night Patrol researchers have succeeded in pushing the boundaries of what is possible. “Thanks to this image, people can enjoy Rembrandt’s masterpiece in even smaller detail than before.”
Designed to enable further research
According to the museum, the new photo is so clear that neural networks can now examine the painting very quickly for similarities in pigment particles or map all the lead soap used in it, which was not possible with the previous photo.
According to the Rijksmuseum, the second phase of the project will begin on January 19, during which the team will continue to reconstruct the painting using the information it now has thanks to the new high-resolution photo.
A full-resolution, scrollable image can be viewed on the Raikes Museum website.
Photos: Portions of a 717-gigapixel photograph of Rembrandt’s Night Patrol
Credit: Rijksmuseum
Source: Peta Pixel
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