High-Def “Last Supper” Goes Online

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

My wife is deathly — I mean deathly — afraid of flying. So afraid that a 50 minute flight to L.A. sends her into a panic. Thus, I will probably never get to Milan to see “The Last Supper” in real-life at the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. If you won’t get there either, you can see it, as can I, at Haltadefinizione — according to the press release, the highest definition photograph ever in the world, at 16 billion pixels. At that resolution, this image has 1,600 times the number of pixels of a standard 10-megapixel digital camera.

At this level of detail, experts will be able to examine portions as though they were just inches away.

“The Last Supper,” as you probably know, depicts the meal shortly before Christ’s death when he announced to his disciples that one of them would betray him. It was painted in the late 15th century by Leonardo Da Vinci, and has been the subject of much discussion, particularly since the publication of the Dan Brown novel, The Da Vinci Code.

The project was made possible thanks to the assistance of the following partners: AMD; Clauss, a German company which provided the high-precision orientation structure; De Agostini, who provided web and communication support; I-Net, who provided high-speed Internet access, and Nikon.