By Tiara Rea

You would think it would be getting hard to find great-quality websites after a couple months of interviewing. But one of the greatest things about working for a web hosting company is that you are never at a loss for incredible websites maintained by webmasters with incredible stories.

This month, I was able to track down one of our biggest sites and also one of the coolest, as I browse this site often and offer its address to customers asking what kinds of sites our servers can handle. Enter XRez.com, one of the most unique sites you’ll ever find online – but don’t take my word for it; let’s hear what Eric Hanson, the man behind the most extreme photography site on the net, has to say.

 

 

Hi Eric; thanks for taking the time to answer these questions!

Let’s start with a simple one: what is XRez Studio and how did you come up with the idea?

XRez Studio is a company I formed a year ago to explore the creative use and application of “gigapixel” images, or in simple terms to make some of the world’s largest photographs. My xRez partner Greg Downing and I came from the feature film visual effects field and came up with the idea a few years ago, when we set out to capture locations digitally for use in effects shots. We became enamored of the images themselves, though, so are now finding use for them in a variety of fields (visual effects is still the most fun however

Do you have a job title at XRez or do you consider yourself a freelancer for many different operations?

Oh, we have the usual corporate titles, but I always thought CEO was a little ridiculous for a small company. We are simply creative partners for our projects. I am a designer by background, so visual effects, photography, and technology all supports that identity.

What technology do you use and integrate in making XRez.com come to life? Do you use special cameras or software?

We try to use mostly off the shelf hardware, but we have written some custom code to let the data flow between software packages. We use Canon 5D DSLRs but are looking forward to the 21 megapixel 1DS Mk3 beast that is almost out, which will double our resolution. We use a specialized piece of German panoramic photo gear that is essentially a programmable robot to take the hundreds of images we need sequentially in a precise overlapping layout.

You talk about 3D manipulations can be performed via your services. What are these 3D manipulations and can you show us some examples?

Greg and I are both 3D animation jockeys, so it was inevitable we would try to merge them together. It took many months of research, but we can now animate within the gigapixel image in full 3d, as we take a spherical image, vs a narrow composition. This affords us to integrate armies, vehicles, ufo’s, or change weather and lighting. We have examples! We are trying to apply these techniques to help the fields of natural science visualization and education. We are working with some of the the National Parks to help convey geologic concepts and the backcountry to their visitors ultimately. We are also building a high resolution digital Santa Catalina Island for the Wrigley Institute of Environmental Research to help assist in their marine biology work.

What’s the coolest thing you can do with a simple photograph?

Oh, add Waldo I suppose Seriously, anything imaginable is possible. I teach these techniques to visual effects students at a school in Hollywood, and they totally alter the scene, adding snow, lakes, Vegas arcades, etc. One technique that I enjoy is to add 3d dimensionality to a 2d image using a special technique used in Hollywood. We have flown the viewer off of Glacier Point in Yosemite using this technique, see http://www.xrez.com/gallery/yosemite/xRez_yose12.html

(Another awesome example of amazing things they’ve done over at XRez Studio can be seen in this image, which is a view of Boston from Prudential Tower, highlighting three aspects of the city in motion below):

You’ve been hosting with Lunarpages for some time. How has the experience been?

Lunar was the best thing to happen to us early with our company. We literally brought a prior ISP down to the ground with our high throughput demands. Lunar promised they could handle the load, which they have with ease. We really appreciate the personality and culture of the company also, that’s hard to come by at other services.

Do you own or operate any other websites?

Both Greg and I have personal websites showcasing some of our CG work. If you have interest in film visual effects or computer graphics come take a look.

It looks like you have your hands in many different pies, technologically speaking. What kinds of projects are you working on currently and how many different entities do you operate in?

Well, we started out with the mission to cater to the visual effects market, but are constantly discovering applications in other fields, which is exciting. We recently finished a large assignment for Move.com, a large real estate site which saw value in giving their customers a way to understand the character of a neighborhood before visiting it. We shot over 270 gigapixel images from 33 cities across the US for them. They should be live with them shortly, which will be one of the largest libraries of gigapixel images to date. We are now working on a spec car ad for the agencies, as well as continuing our National Park work, specifically in Yosemite, where we are assisting a geologist whose mission is to help predict rockfall in the park. We will be creating an unprecedented image of the valley next year with his help. It is definitely an adventure to see what’s next with this.

You’ve also done lighting and digital work on some major motion pictures – I noted Cast Away, The Day After Tomorrow, Spiderman, and Fantasia 2000 just to name a few! What sort of work did you do on these movies?

I have a long history on many films, most of them large “tentpole” summer films, which feeds the visual effects industry. I started out originally as an architect, and set out to do digital cityscape design in film, which I was able to initially do on The Fifth Element. After that, I searched for films which had digital environment components, which back then was few and far in between, but now just about every effects heavy film has a large amount of. The gigapixel work we are doing is a direct outgrowth of that experience.

Is working on incredibly-successful movies the coolest thing you’ve done to date? If not, what is?

Oh, it chalks up as cool, but it is also a tremendous amout of work dealing with vast amounts of technical and artistic minutia for months on end. The amount of work put into precious few seconds of screen time is a truly astounding aspect of doing effects work, often times seeming like an exercise in mental illness I would place my hang gliding and adventuring pursuits easily alongside the film work however.

Out of all of the incredible projects you’ve worked on, which is your favorite and which has given you the most pride?

All of the film work has been gratifying, but we are having a great time now with xRez, so it’s my proud new baby.. I even have xRez license plates!

(what a dork ….I swear I don’t have Harry Potter license plates…)

Since you’re doing so much these days, is this your dream profession? If you could be doing anything in the world, what would it be?

I am always doing what I feel I need to be at the moment, luckily. It great to pursue your interests and see what comes out of that energy. I always say be careful what you wish for!

What kinds of 3D technology are emerging for sites like XRez.com?

We had a big breakthrough in utilizing the Google Maps API to allow anyone online to view our images. We spent the first year with the images only viewable after an hour long open in Photoshop, so to have them freely zoomable online is great. I believe we were the first to get gigapixel photography on Google Maps. But the real breakthrough has been working with Microsoft Research and their HDView, which really allows proper viewing and performance of the images. I call it QuickTime VR on steroids Zoomify is now supported directly in Photoshop, so anyone can now tool up large image viewing.

What are you future plans for XRez.com?

Continue to find compelling uses of visual effects and gigapixel imagery across many fields that can benefit from it. Continue to pioneer the creative use of evolving graphics technology. Stay outdoors adventuring and shooting as much as possible..

And finally, some LP fun! Do you prefer…

Hats or gloves?

I go for fingerless gloves and balaclavas myself.

Cats or dogs?

Cats seems to show up in our house more often.

Old-style Disney (i.e. Bambi) or CGI-based Disney (Ratatouille)?

CGI all the way. I do miss the great background work done in the early days however, and if it came down to it, I’d pick Warner Bros cartoons for a desert island.

Casual or conservative?

Well, I am an Austinite turned Californian, so I traded denim for beach shorts many years ago. I used to wear ties as an architect, but those got shelved when I went into film effects. I did stupidly wear a suit to my first interview w/ Industrial Light and Magic though. Didn’t get the job at the time as you might guess! Learned that lesson only one time, know your audience!

A disposable camera or a low-quality camera phone?

I’m waiting for a gigapixel iPhone..

Japanese Anime or American cartoons?

I’ll take Miyazaki, thank you.

(Me too!! Princess Mononoke was my first real foray into anime)

Having one steady job or 10 freelance gigs?

Forget security, life happens best from the unknown!

As always, I’d like to thank our interviewee, Eric, for his time and patience. I love his site because it really does emphasize how big a small company can be and what kind of interactive, visually-stimulating sites can really exist on our servers. Thanks again, Eric!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 10:05 am and is filed under Interviews, Issue 4 - November 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed . Both comments and pings are currently closed.