Forget MEGApixels and start taking GIGApixel images with your digital camera. That’s right, with your tiny, point-and-shoot digital camera. New technology from Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Google and local Austin company, Charmed Labs now brings consumers the ability to create and share multibillion-pixel panoramas.

They are called “GigaPans.” Carnegie Mellon and Ames developed software that could digitally stitch together hundreds of overlapping images to create one large, extremely high resolution picture. Charmed Labs is an electronics company from Austin, Texas that has worked with Carnegie Mellon on past projects. For this endeavor, they were able to create a low-cost robotic device in which a point-and-shoot digital camera can be mounted to take the necessary pictures.
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Whether with a brush, a finger, a water bottle or a computer, Renee Auguste is always painting. Now, she brings her talents to Canvas Press.

Through the encouragement of her mother, Auguste began painting and drawing at age three. She began a traditional study of art at the young age of 14, when she was given a scholarship to California State University, Northridge. Following this, she worked mostly on her own with charcoals before deciding to take up the study again at 24. She attended Santa Rosa College and then Learning Tree University.
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How many times have you taken the most amazing picture in your life, only to find out later that it is out of focus and blurry? It happens to everyone, even the pros. There are several different reasons that this happens and many tricks to help make it better. You can always try to add some sharpness on the computer later, but it often degrades the quality of the image and never quite does the job. The best bet is to take a sharp picture from the start.
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In health care, art has proven an important factor. Pulse, a medical magazine from the United Kingdom, wrote in June of 2006, “Artwork in surgeries can reduce stress, improve interaction between doctors and patients and even help recruit and retain staff.” They noted that 91% of General Practitioners say the nature of the work environment could improve interaction with patients, 75% said it can improve recruitment and retention of staff. The factors that matter in a work environment were light, plants, photography and art.

In Art Business News, December 2005, “Art for health’s sake” discussed that abstract or landscape images can transport a person to a different location. This therefore can help distract a patient from pain or anxiety; it can also create an ice-breaker or new topic of conversation.
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