bill hamblin

0.41 Gigapixel Photo of Salt Lake Temple

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Not to be outdone by yesterday’s 360° Panoramas of Temple Square, Dr. Hamblin has produced probably the highest resolution photograph of the Salt Lake Temple ever made.  It is 0.41 gigapixels, which amounts to 410 megapixels.  Compared with most modern digital cameras which are capable of 2-8 megapixels, this is a super high resolution image.  The total file size of the image is 400 megabytes, but don’t worry, you don’t have to download all of that data to see it.

Dr. Hamblin used a new technology called Gigapan to create the gigapixel panorama.  The results are nothing short of amazing.  The image loads fast, and you can zoom into any portion of the temple and see exquisite details very close-up. I have embedded the photo below for your convenience (if you are reading this in email or RSS, it will only display on the website). If you’d like to see the photo fullscreen, click here.

Dr. Hamblin has also produced a short guided tour of some of the architectural features of the eastern facade of the temple in this photo. It includes the building dedicatory inscription or plaque, sun stones, star stones, clouds, squared-circle stones (sometimes called “Saturn” stones), all seeing eye, moon stones, Alpha and Omega, the Right Hand of Fellowship, and the Angel Moroni.  To see these, click here, and then click on the “Snapshots.”

360° Panoramas of Temple Square

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360° panoramas of Temple Square let you look around as if you were there.

360° panoramas of Temple Square let you look around as if you were there.

Dr. William Hamblin has put together some very cool high resolution 360° panoramas of different locations on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  And they really are 360°.  You can look in all different directions, including up and down.  It gives the impression of standing on the spot.  Well done!

The locations he has included are:

  • West of the Salt Lake Temple (next to Tabernacle)
  • In between Assembly Hall and Tabernacle
  • East of the Salt Lake Temple
  • South of the Salt Lake Temple
  • Near the South Visitor’s Center
  • Christus statue in the North Visitor’s Center
  • Conference Center auditorium
  • Tabernacle interior

You get the best effect if you zoom in just a little.  You can zoom in and out by using the shift and Ctrl keys on your keyboard.  You can move around by clicking and dragging with your mouse.

I’ve always been impressed by how new technologies can take us places for fun or practical purposes.  I’ve written about visiting Utah temples with Google Street View, modeling temples in 3D with Google’s Sketchup, using Microsoft’s Photosynth technology to virtually zoom around Temple Square, or how the Church uses computer rendering to envision future temples.  Dr. Hamblin’s panoramas are a welcome addition!

See the 360° Panoramas of Temple Square

Margaret Barker Interview – Part 7b (Temple in the Modern World)

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“We have to try to get through the filter of the later editing… But deep down, there was something there.  I’m mean this [the temple] is a cultural icon, it’s shaped our pictures of the garden of Eden, it’s shaped our pictures of what it is to be a human being.  Because Adam is the great high priest, and everything that happened within that setting, for better or worse, has shaped the Western world’s idea of what it means to be human.  It’s a huge thing to discover…”  —Margaret Barker

Margaret Barker Interview – Part 7a (Location of the Temple)

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“…the building of the Second Temple involved leveling a new site… I mean, as far as I can see, the Zachariah prophesies about the mountain becoming a plain and building all that sort of thing, they are implying that a new mountaintop site is to be used for the rebuilt temple. That suggests to me that the site of the first temple was not the site of the second temple.” —Margaret Barker

Margaret Barker Interview – Part 6 (Seeing the Face of God)

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“The original purpose of the temple pilgrimage, was that you went to the temple to see the face of the Lord. Yea? In the old calendars ‘each of your males will see the face of the Lord’… By the time you’re reading the Masoretic texts as we have now, ‘each of your males will be seen in the presence of the Lord’… it’s been changed. Because the idea that you saw the presence of God was unthinkable, so they said, well, ok, you appear in the presence of God, you present yourself in the temple…”  —Margaret Barker

“So we know that somebody thought it was you are seeing the face of the Lord. Yea. Very interesting, very interesting. So someone has been at work, changing the docs, and we know which way.”  —Margaret Barker

“I think Melchizedek was a theophany of Yahweh. The Jewish interpretation, certainly the next passage, … Yahweh is the great high priest, and he is the one, as you have in the temple, you know, the great high priest is Yahweh, and he is the priest to God Most High. So you’ve got a hierarchy of priests. And I think that is how Genesis 15 was interpreted. Where, in the Apocalypse of Abraham, Abraham sees, mostly clearly, Melchizedek, but he describes him as … the angel Yahweh, and he is dressed as a high priest, with his purple and his… turban thing, and yes, it’s all very very interesting… all the other earlier sources… Melchizedek is the priest of El Elyon, almost certainly Yahweh, part of the great angel hierarchy. I mean, the implications of that for Melchizedek priesthood, is just mind boggling, absolutely mind boggling… So there is a lot of work for people to do, waiting to be done. Oh dear, it would be nice if we didn’t need sleep. We’d get such a lot more done!”  —Margaret Barker