Guinness Book of World Records Photo Mosaic
What do you get when you have 176,750 photos, a large empty convention center, and a mosaic technology company: The Guinness Book of World Record's largest photo mosaic.
Transition Lenses partnered with Picture Mosaics to create the world's largest photo mosaic ever. Over a 6 month period, users submitted their favorite photos. After the submission period closed, our true effort of designing the world's largest photo mosaic began.
The first step was to run the photos through our proprietary duplicate finder to ensure each photo was truly unique (a Guinness requirement). This whittled the roughly 182,000 photos to 176,800 photos. Then with our confirmed set of unique photos, we began the color and shape analysis. We were truly excited to see what our advanced analysis engines (algorithms), a cumulative development effort over the last 10+ years, would be able to do with such a large set of photos. We have four main engines that we use depending on the content of the target source along with the types of photos that will make up the mosaic. On our best machines, this process took a full week, however after all analysis and placement rendering was complete, it was clear which engine produced the best mosaic. With a little further tweaking and final re-render, the design of the world's largest mosaic was complete.
The next big step was production. For organization (and sanity), we placed row and column information into the corner of each photo, once this effort was complete, it was off to production! Production of the 5"x3.5" photo prints took about 1.5 weeks - the pile of boxes was quite impressive!
There was much organization and planning for the final step: construction. Once a plan of attack was solidified and the stage was set, IT BEGAN: hand placing each photo, one photo at a time.
The mosaic was constructed on the Florida State Fairgrounds, as volunteers worked over the course of 3 days to hand place, one by one, the 176,750 photos. The final mosaic covered over 21,000 square feet, and was officially awarded the world record on October 11th, 2012. A day that was also declared Tampa Sight Day by Tampa City Council member, Harry Cohen.
Picture Mosaics is truly proud and honored to be a part of this record breaking mosaic.
Transitions Optical
Event Promotional Video
Tampa Bay Times
Coverage and TV Spot
Picture Mosaics
Time Lapse Animation
Sight Seeing
Interactive Mosaic
Over 21,000 square feet of vinyl is laid out and gridded in preperation for the mosaic.
71 boxes containing 176,750 printed photos are stacked and ready to go!
Photo placement kicks off!
Each row contained 505 hand placed photos.
Photos were printed and organized by row to ensure proper placement.
One row at a time!
The mosaic starts to take shape by the end of day 2!
350 rows were placed over a period of 3 full days.
The mosaic was constructed at the Florida State Fairgrounds outside of Tampa.
A strong adhesive was used to ensure the photos stayed in place.
The mosaic is nearly complete!
Volunteers browse the finished mosaic.
Much needed rest after 3 days of building a record setting mosaic!
Group shot in a sea of photos!
176,750 photos were placed in total.
The finished mosaic: Left side
The finished mosaic: Right side
Complete mosaic shot in panoramic fisheye.
Picture Mosaics CEO, Al Charpentier, sits in the sea of photos - a very unique experience.
What it feels like to be standing on a sea of photos.
Tampa's local news was on site for the event and unveiling.
Harry Cohen of the Tampa City Council places the last photo.
It's official, a new world record! Our CEO, Al Charpentier, and lead designer, Tim Heffron stand with a Guinness representative to capture this historic moment.
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