Turning train rides into 50,000-pixel panoramic scans

What if you used an entire train route as a giant flatbed scanner?

A developer built a custom camera setup to capture continuous, wide-angle photographs out of moving trains and ferries. The rig relies on an industrial line-scan camera—bought on eBay for around $70—that reads out a single vertical strip of 2,048 pixels up to 19,000 times per second. By stitching those slices together as the vehicle moves, the software creates massive pictures, including a single ferry shot measuring 56,894 pixels wide.

Why it matters: Standard smartphone panoramas break down when you move fast. This project uses factory conveyor-belt hardware and custom math to turn variable transit speeds into crisp, flattened digital landscapes without needing thousands of dollars in vintage camera backs.

Know this: The project started late one night with a phone taped to an office chair, pushed slowly past a living room sofa to test the initial code.

Proof that with cheap factory surplus and enough math, even a subway commute looks like fine art.