Once in a while at SAPO we cross our path with extraordinary people with uncommon ideas and unlimited motivation. Ideas to which we just can't say no, those with the right amount of usefulness, awesomeness and uniqueness, you know what I'm talking about.
The Panoramas SAPO project was one of those moments. When Basílio and Pedro came to us and the thought of making a record Tera pixel panoramic photo of Lisbon took shape, we sank our energy and resources into the project and put up an elite team working together in no time.
And what a team and project this was. During the months following, we planed the photos, built and tested bizarre equipments, literally climbed bridges and castles in the hunt for the best spots to use our gear, handled the right authorizations, learned a whole pile of theory about gigantic panoramic photos, developed software and stretched the known computing systems for this sort of projects to new limits in order to meet our goal. And we've done it.
More than 2000 hours of computing processing, 32.000 photo shots, 6TB of data and 5.000 hours of work later, we finally launched the Panoramas SAPO project at SAPO Codebits 2011.
This is the "making of" video. Best seen in full screen. We hope you like it.
Non flash, H.264 iOS/Android friendly versions here: HD and SD.
11/11/11 11:11:11 time to celebrate in style at Codebits. Most annoying music ever, lots of fun. Our apologies for interrupting our speakers for 1 minute, that was rude, but a moment like this had to be celebrated somehow. Enjoy.
Here's the video for the opening session of this year's Codebits. Our CTO and co-founder Celso Martinho speaks.
Yes, we know you've waiting for this. Here's the video for the winning projects session and Codebits ending.
Some of you have been asking for the list too, so here it is:
1. Lego Coding
3. My tour
4. Nuclear Taco Sensor Helmet Gameshow
5. SpectaculAR
6. Codebooth
7. Emelalert
9. The grid
10. Balibot
H264 friendly link here.
Our friends at Artica developed a bot just for Codebits. And they even offered it to us.
Now they've written the whole story at their blog. Read it.
Codebits attendees just got an email with the link to a survey about the event.
Your honest feedback is very important for us, please take 10 minutes and answer the questions, it will help us improve the next edition even more.
The results from this survey will be summarized in our website pretty soon. Thanks for your participation.
Just in case you've missed Codebits 2011, the launch of SAPO Panoramas was one of the stars of the event. We even featured a live demo involving a giant 25 by 4 meter long projection screen and a Kinect based navigation interface.
Some of the members of the team gave a talk about this project called "Panoramas: a guided tour".
But it doesn't end here. They took the time and shot a great panorama of the Codebits main room, on site, using the same equipment and methodology as the real thing.
It's online right now. Take a tour and the main room.
UPDATE: The Main Stage is now available too.
Here's the ending Keynote from our friend and chief at SAPO, PT board member Abílio Martins. Great messages. Don't forget to send the feedback.
With all the excitement, did you check your gift bags?
As it happens, there is a hidden gem in there - a flyer for the first Web application and services marketplace in Portugal.
Yes, the one that SAPO made public at the start of Codebits, and that was the main topic of a great talk yesterday - it is the thing to boost your application with our SAPO Web services, and we’ve made a number of paid web services completely FREE for Codebits projects in ready-made, easily used packs:
- Codebits V: Free SMS Developer Pack
- Codebits V: Free MMS Developer Pack
- Codebits V: Global Channel Voice message Pack
- Codebits V: Cultural Agenda and Leisure
- Codebits V: Cinema Agenda
- Codebits V: Cinema Premier Agenda
It’s always a good idea to remember that besides these, you have an entire catalog crammed full of free services at your disposal, and that we’re adding more every week, so bookmark that link for later.