[Affected]

So, Microsoft's Live Labs have put out a public version of Photosynth, free to experiment with.

www.photosynth.net

It's quirky and not perfect, but when it works, it's pretty neat. I like the aesthetic, I've always had problems with plain photos since something is missing - the way you can move and sense the space when just walking around, the way it surrounds you... This seems to bring some of that to photography. Windows only, unfortunately.

[notic]

i made one of my kitchen it's pretty neat! very easy to do

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=E3265557-E4D4-4643-8D3B-93553EE97546

[notic]

this is what it looks like outside..

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=2BBB0A64-D8C1-4125-9D83-070480649726

[Jimmyjimjim]

IIInnteresting.............

Doesn't work quite how I thought it would, and it feels a little more like QuicktimeVR than I thought, but definitely cool. I think it would be best when utilizing a HUGE matrix of photos... .like Flickr

I somehow thought it would use the photo data to extrapolate the space in three dimensions, which isn't what it really looks like it's doing. Kind of assigning locations in space to photos and not necessarily extrapolating new data.

Either way, very cool, thanks for posting the link!

-E-

[Affected]

It does actually create point clouds from the photos when enough different angles are given - press control to see just the points in a synth. Also I saw a related video from the phototourism guys who also make photosynth, where they were using 3d proxy geometry to project photos onto, but the 3d models were not extrapolated from the images. I think it should be possible to use the point clouds as depth maps of sorts to warp the images, kind of like that compositing video I posted here a while back. Then again, it's such an obvious thing they're probably either working on it or decided they can't get accurate enough info from the photos. The point clouds look remarkably accurate to me, though, for what they are.