KEYNOTE / Robert Erdmann
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters recommend it as a technically jaw-dropping talk, and it is the standard reference whenever the Night Watch gigapixel images come up.
What it is
Robert Erdmann, a materials scientist at the Rijksmuseum, gives a PyCon keynote on the ultra-high-resolution imaging of Rembrandt's Night Watch. He covers the automated gantry camera system, the Python software that drives it, and the large volumes of image data involved.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2021 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec stefanpie · 2021-06 · on “The Night Watch: The Missing Pieces”
Robert Erdmann also gave a keynote talk at PyCon US 2021 about how they used Python for most of digitization and processing of the Night Watch (aka Operation Night Watch). Fascinating talk with tones of technical details. Link: [this video]
Strong rec rocmcd · 2021-12 · on “Rijksmuseum to Stage the Largest Vermeer Exhibition in 2023”
I can’t hear about the Rijksmuseum without thinking of the presentation Rob Erdmann did at Pycon on how they imaged Rembrandt’s Night Watch: [this video] Incredible work being done there. I’m glad to see they’re continuing to make headlines.
Strong rec oqb23 · 2021-12 · on “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2021?”
Robert Erdmann's keynote at PyCon: [this video] The talk centers around Erdmann's use of python in "combining materials science, computer science, and imaging science to help the world access, preserve, and understand its cultural heritage". The technical complexity and nuance that went into the project was truly jaw-dropping. This was the first talk I immediately felt the urge to share with multiple co-workers & friends.
Recommends cyberlimerence · 2024-09 · on “Ultra high-resolution image of The Night Watch (2022)”
For anyone interested in technical aspects of this, I recommend watching Pycon talk [1] from Robert Erdmann. I bookmarked this couple of years ago. [1] [this video]
Cites erdmann · 2022-01 · on “Ultra High Resolution Photo of Night Watch (2022)”
Glad to see this getting exposure on HN. I gave a PyCon keynote [1] last year about how this was done. I've also put the image online in my own viewer [2], which has a few additional features: it encodes the viewing location in the URL and it allows for multi-pane synchronized views [3]. (Please be nice to my server.) I'm happy to answer questions here or on Twitter (@erdmann). [1] [this video] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK]
Cites easytiger · 2022-01 · on “717 Gigapixel Image of Rembrandt's Nightwatch”
Seminar on how it was done here by the author [LINK] [this video] 97 rows × 87 cols (8 439) @Hasselblad H6D-400c MS images Size: 925 000 px × 775 000 px (717 GP) Res: 5 µm (5080 ppi) It's a £43k camera on a huge automated gantry system controlled by python software
Cites zerd · 2022-01 · on “717 Gigapixel Image of Rembrandt's Nightwatch”
In this video [1] he mentions that each 100mp image is around 600MB, which aligns with the size of the 4-shot multi-shot mode of the H6D-400C MS. 8439 photos 579MB would be around 4.7TB in raw format. [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]