The Last Supper Will Travel The Internet At 16 Billion Pixels

by Mary Anne Simpson, Technology / Other

The Last Supper - Credit: Photo HAL 9000; Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci

HAL 9000 will send The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci soaring through the Internet on October 27, 2007 with a high density view of 16 billion pixels. The time given for the launch is 9:30 A.M. Central European Summer Time. For USA viewers, 3:30 A.M. EST.

HAL 9000 Haltadefinizone known for its high density art work will send a 16 billion pixel graphic display of Leonardo Da Vinci´s The Last Supper on October 27, 2007 at 9:30 AM Central European Summer Time. For people living in the United States the display will be shown at 3:30 A.M. EST and 12:30 A.M. PST.

Noted art historian, Vittorio Sgarbi addressed concerns expressed by some about the accumulation of dust and other pollutants that might harm the famous painting. He stated that concerns about the original art work becoming blackened by fine particles of pollution was completely non-existence.

The popularized fresco was originally painted in the Santa Maria delle Grazie church between the years 1494 and 1498. The Last Supper painting on display in Italy receives 350,000 tourist per year. The popularity increased after the Dan Brown book utilized it as a clue in the fictional novel The Da Vinci Code.

According to United Press International, Vittorio Sgarbi said that the only fogginess on the painting was put there by Leonardo himself, when he painted it.

The Last Supper 16 billion pixel event is sponsored in part by AMD, CLAUSS, DeAgostino, I.Net, and Nikkon. As with other high density graphics previously published by HAL 9000, downloads of the pictures are done at the users own risk.

The Haltadefinizone graphic displays are finitely detailed and should be interesting for art and technology aficionados. The HAL 9000 Haltadefinizone site for The Last Supper display is located at: http://www.haltadefinizione.com .

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Posted by loboy 10/26/07 18:09

Rank: 3.67/5 after 3 votes

I don't get it. Is the file of the painting sitting on a server available for download? If so, how many gigabytes is the file? Is it being transmitted via a live feed? If so, how? Wouldn't that be the crux of this article? The bulk of this article has nothing to do with the title.

The way the article is worded sounds like the painting is travelling at a speed, rather than a file size. I highly doubt this huge file, if it is a file, will be "soaring" on any dial-up connections.

Why not explain how the sponsors are sponsoring this so called event. Did AMD give some processors and Nikkon some cameras? This article could be interesting if it explained anything. The web site cited doesn't even have any information either. Oh well.

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Posted by fredrick 10/27/07 00:50

Rank: 5/5 after 1 vote

well, in a couple more hours we'll find out, I guess...

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Posted by freemind 10/27/07 03:15

Rank: 5/5 after 2 votes

It's available now! http://www.haltad...look.asp

However, you cannot download it! What a shame! :( You can only browse it and zoom in....

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Posted by alexxx 10/27/07 04:06

Rank: 2.5/5 after 2 votes

It's available now! http://www.haltad...look.asp

However, you cannot download it! What a shame! :( You can only browse it and zoom in....

what's the big deal about The Last Supper pixel?

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Posted by ontheinternets 10/28/07 02:12

Rank: 3/5 after 2 votes

.. and if you zoom in, you'll find it is watermarked with "H9".

If there's a story here at all, I'd say it's that someone digitized it at high-res and that it is available for analysis to some experts (who are these people?). The internet portion of it is just a disappointment, and arguably even out of touch with what people would anticipate.

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Posted by fredrick 10/28/07 20:56

Not rated yet.

yeah too bad about the H9's everywhere... still, I got to see it a lot closer than I'm probably ever going to - cracks and all (and theres a lot of cracks...)

"The internet portion of it is just a disappointment, and arguably even out of touch with what people would anticipate."

what were people anticipating? It said it was going to be a high-res of the Last Supper, and thats exactly what it was - the only thing dissapointing was my internet speed was too slow to download the zoomed in portions in a reasonable timeframe.

Did 'people' expect it to be interactive with flashy lights and never before seen commentary by Da Vinci himself or something?

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Posted by ontheinternets 10/28/07 23:46

Rank: 4/5 after 1 vote

"Did 'people' expect it to be interactive with flashy lights and never before seen commentary by Da Vinci himself or something?"

Personally, I was hoping for access to a simple data file that could be downloaded in its entirety and used in any imaginable manner. People would have found uses for it. Instead, it's locked in a particular web interface and watermarked. I feel that to slot the internet audience into the role of passive observer is a bit out of touch.

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Posted by ontheinternets 10/29/07 00:30

Rank: 3/5 after 1 vote

In case anyone would think that making the full 16 Gigapixel image available to the public as a data file would be unrealistic..

Using bittorrent would offload much of the uploading stress to the interested downloaders. Because this is a classic which many people feel belongs in the public domain, you could expect people to continue seeding it for a long time. Using a lossy format such as Jpeg2000 would go a long way toward reducing the size without sacrificing too much quality.

Anyway, the interface is cool. It was just hyped a bit much and my expectations got the better of me.

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Posted by fredrick 10/29/07 00:58

Rank: 5/5 after 1 vote

heh... I would have had to have been downloading for weeks for a 19 gigapixel picture. Anyway, I can't say I ever expected they'd allow it to be downloaded, especially at that size. Maybe it should be in the public domain, but plenty of people are still making plenty of money off of it.

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Posted by saucerfreak2012 10/31/07 08:48

Rank: 1/5 after 1 vote

...Talk about fast food!!!!

sorry :P