The Mojave desert north of Los Angeles is often overlooked as just a desolate pass-through enroute to the Sierra Nevadas, but does contain a few gems, one of them Red Rock Canyon. Red Rock is an area featuring extremely intricate erosion on low-lying ridges of the El Paso mountains. The canyon is used for regular field trips by Eric Hanson, who leads USC and Gnomon visual effects students how to create digital backgrounds from panoramic images. Though not gigapixel in resolution, the following projects show some results of the student’s work, some entirely altering the original landscape.

Further north in the gateway of the Owens Valley is Fossil Falls, a deep fissure cut in an ancient lava flow. We chose this area to rehearse a technique of shooting gigapixel panoramics from vertical walls while under rappel. After descending, the tripod and motion control head is oriented in a horizontal position and anchored to the wall using protection cams placed in cracks. The climber than can descend and the Karline Rodeon unit can be controlled remotely via bluetooth from a PDA. The technique was successful, and we plan on shooting from much larger walls and caverns in future expeditions.

Team Members: Eric Hanson, Greg Downing, Debra Issac, Dan McFarland, Ken Hoefling