Check out Photosynth – a 3-D photo experience from Microsoft. This technology takes stitching photos together to a whole new level. 100’s of photos using back-end technology developed by SeaDragon (client-server efficient streaming of photo data) & Univ of Washington (machine vision research – PhotoTourism). Photosynth is a collaboration between Microsoft and the University of Washington based on the groundbreaking research of Noah Snavely (UW), Steve Seitz (UW), and Richard Szeliski (Microsoft Research).
Effectively by combining these technologies, Microsoft has created a 3-D model of the world, and now they are aligning individual photos to that 3-D world model. This is a web-service. Currently they use about 200 photos to create these 3-D effects, and they can do amazing things. This interview / product demo with Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Gary Flake of Microsoft’s Live Labs shows some of what this software does.
Splat mode: pictures related to photos (8mpix images). In this demo, Gary Flake shows an artist Gary Fagin’s studio and view 80 mega-pixel images over broadband. Rich detail, a sense of spatial continuity that’s preserved. Also St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican. Navigation is reasonably seamless, as the pictures overlap.
Microsoft LiveLabs: http://labs.live.com/photosynth
Yea, this Podtech has the inside scoop on the IT industry. It’s worthwhile keeping his blog on your horizon. Good stuff. Especially nice is his scoop about Sun open-sourcing Java. Nice going. He got the IM… www.podtech.com – hours before the mainstream press!
