Only a few days remain to see a unique example of Egyptian art at the HR Gallop Gallery (building 21) at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga.Dr Sam Bowker (pictured with the textile), lecturer in art history and visual culture in the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Wagga Wagga, said the exhibit of a very rare and spectacular example of 19th century Egyptian tentmaker applique – known as Khedival khayamiya – is part of the exhibition 'Have Poets Left a Patch to Sew?' at the gallery.The show includes new digital animations and soundscapes by Rachel Walls and Dr Damian Candusso, recreating the 'Street of the Tentmakers' in Cairo, as well as new poems from the Booranga Writer's Centre."These art works represent a meeting of the contemporary high-tech and the historic handmade," Dr Bowker said."The two elements overlap between two teaching and research strengths of Charles Sturt University ─ our innovative approaches to both photography and Islamic art."This exhibit is called the Thatcher Panel. It was made around 1900, and it's enormous; it fills the whole wall with intricate geometric patterns, exquisite sewing and complex calligraphy. It's on loan from a collection in the UK, and has never been displayed in Australia. This is your only chance to see it in person before we digitise it."This week CSU's Mr Timothy Crutchett will take a series of high-tech gigapan photographs of the exhibit. His previous 'gigapan khayamiya' can be seen here - http://scci.csu.edu.au/gigapixelproject/ Just click on an example, view it on full screen, then zoom in slowly."The resolution on these digital images is mind-blowing," Dr Bowker said. "It allows the viewer to see individual stitches from many metres away. These 'gigapans' help to preserve this endangered Egyptian textile art by letting huge or fragile textiles be studied online, accessible to anyone who wants to see them."Dr Bowker explained that the significance of the exhibit is not that the textile is temporarily available for view, but rather it is the actual CSU project of hi-tech digitisation of this textile."This is significant because we're breaking new ground with photographic technology using a remarkable Egyptian textile," Dr Bowker said. "The time it spends on the wall is only intended to be brief, because the photographs through the gigapan system at Charles Sturt University are extraordinary."These kinds of photographs are usually used for large-scale landscape panoramas, not textile surfaces. The Google Cultural Institute uses a similar technology, but we're using it for Egyptian khayamiya."The exhibit finishes after 4pm on Friday 5 May.