Thursday, April 28, 2011

Image file size of the Earth

TL;DR The file size of a 72ppi PNG image of Earth's surface is 3.37 zettabytes, or 3,705,354,190,000 gigabytes.

Assuming image resolution:
72ppi = 5184 pixels per square inch
Surface area of the Earth:
510,072,000 km2 = (7.90613181 × 10 to the 17th) square inches
Assuming (for a lossless PNG) an average storage size of:
~7.76 bits per pixel
7.90613181 × 10 to the 17th square inches
* 5184 pixels per square inch
_______________________________
4.09853873 × 10 to the 21st pixels
4.09853873 × 10 to the 21st pixels
* ~7.76 bits
_______________________________
3.36744942 zettabytes
((7.90613181 × 10 to the 17th) * 5184) * 7.76 bits
3.36744942 zettabytes
or
3.70254979 × 10 to the 12th gigabytes
or
3,702,549,790,000 gigabytes
Note:
I realize that ppi is somewhat contentious. I only chose
the 72ppi figure because it was convenient-ish. According
to Wikipedia, photographs should be printed at 300 ppi to
look decent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_density
In that case, a 300ppi image will weigh in at:
58.5 zettabytes
view raw gistfile1.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

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