Tiny pixel-sized dot is really a full-size Bentley Flying Spur

by Keith Morgan on Thursday, April 6th, 2017

Bentley Motors has unveiled a remarkable ground-breaking new Gigapixel photograph – one of the world’s most detailed landscape images.

At the heart of the photograph sits a Bentley Flying Spur W12 S in the luxury marina of Dubai – the world’s fastest-growing city. Zoom out, and the groundbreaking NASA-derived technology of the Gigapixel image allows you to explore and experience the city panorama in intricate detail, while beyond it the curvature of the earth is visible.

Zoom in and the image will take you in sharp focus, through the landscape, right up to the instantly recognizable hood badge of the Flying Spur.

With the new Gigapixel image, viewers can also explore the Flying Spur W12 S inside and out with a 360-degree film narrated by John Paul Gregory, Bentley’s Head of Exterior Design. Gregory talks to the audience from inside the car; the stunning Bentley Suite in the The St. Regis Dubai; and the new flagship Bentley retailer on the famous Sheikh Zayed Road.

The Flying Spur W12 S features enhanced power and torque outputs from the mighty 6.0-litre, twin-turbo W12 engine. This increase in power means that the Flying Spur W12 S achieves a top speed of 325 km/h (202 mph) – the first four-door Bentley to exceed the 200-mph performance barrier.

The same attention to detail that is applied to the 130 man-hours it takes to build each Flying Spur went into creating the extraordinary Gigapixel image.

Bentley suspended a camera 264 metres up the Cayan Tower – one of Dubai’s tallest buildings – to capture what is the world’s most detailed landscape image. The innovative technology used had to withstand 40-degree heat that created a haze and 25 km/h winds that threatened to disrupt stability.

An incredible 57.7 billion pixels were carefully stitched together to create a single image that also balanced light levels painstakingly across each pixel. The intricate process took 48 hours and 1,825 frames to create. Downloading the image took a further 18 hours.

You can explore more at www.bentleymotors.com

keith [dot] morgan [at] drivewaybc [dot] ca