In pictures: Hauntingly detailed Titanic images revealed

A century after it sank, new hi-tech images reveal, in greater detail than ever previously seen, the doomed ship on the ocean floor.

The new photographs, shot using state-of-the-art technology by independent research group Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, provide a greater understanding of what happened on 15 April 1912, the fateful day when the ship sank.

They are the by-product of a multi-million dollar, two-month expedition that used a number of different approaches to get never-before-seen views of the wrecked ship.

For much of August and September 2010, explorers from the Woods Hole Oceanic Institution used robotic vehicles to collect images during programmed sweeps of the surrounding areas. During these sweeps, the robots stored “ribbons” of data, with the products of the repeated attempts then collected together and observed as a whole unit.

The process, referred to as “mowing the lawn”, worked over the entire area of the ship and the surrounding seabed.

The pictures are optical mosaics, each consisting of 1,500 high resolution images rectified using sonar data.