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Incredible 360° interactive panorama of Great Pyramids

David Pescovitz at 11:25 am Thu, Sep 27, 2012

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AirPano created a breathtaking 360° interactive panorama of Egypt's Great Pyramids of Giza. The video above shows how AirPano collected the images that went into the panorama. How did they do it? As Greg from Daily Grail explains, "Just like the aliens that built the Giza pyramids, they used UFOs (or possibly remote-controlled drone-copters) to fly a panoramic camera up to certain points above the plateau in order to get the best possible view of these jaw-dropping structures." When I visited the pyramids as a 13-year-old, I was struck by how close the pyramids are to bustling Cairo. I imagined a long camel trek into the desert (hey, I was 13!) when it was really just a 15 minute taxi ride. Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt • 360° Aerial Panorama

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

MORE:  DRONES • egypt • pyramids

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  • Jellodyne

    A 15 minute tax ride?

    • chgoliz

      Must have been a few decades ago.

      One thing that really surprised me at Giza was how looooooooong the Sphinx is.  It’s practically the length of a pyramid itself, with a pinhead on top (comparatively speaking).

      (edited to add: there WAS a previous comment I was responding to, questioning the cab ride being only 15 minutes.)

      • David Pescovitz

        Yes, three decades ago.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001443259034 David Davion

    60 seconds of aerial footage and 60+ seconds of the people who made it. Kind of disappointing, really.

    • MachineElf

       I think you may have missed the link directly below the video (which is only the ‘making of’), to the actual 360 degree panoramas:

      http://www.airpano.com/360Degree-VirtualTour.php?3D=Egypt-Cairo-Pyramids

  • Art Carnage

    Gosh, I sure do love it when sites resize my browser without my permission. 

    • MachineElf

       Yeah, assholes that travel to exotic places and fly remote-controlled hexacopters up into the air to take amazing panoramic shots with expensive cameras and then share them freely on their website for the world to see, and resize your browser. First against the wall!

  • buddy66

     Thanks. I figured it for a typically geeky fix on gadgetry over subject.

  • http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline

     Im always shocked when i am reminded about how close the Pyramids are to the city, and that they sit on such and awkward and unlikely peninsula of desert. Its actually literally like something out of one of the later Dune novels wot no one likes.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Yeah.  I stayed at the Mena House, which is marked on the image.  We could just walk to the pyramids.

      Although, to be clear, Cairo is on the other side of the river.  The pyramids are in Cairo’s sister city, Giza, which has 2.7 million people, compared to Cairo’s 9 million.