Demo of the Year: Photosynth

Ewww, the demo only works on IE. Hopefully that’ll change soon. I’ll try it out as soon as I can work up the willpower to push than unpleasant little “E” icon.

Ewww, the demo only works on IE. Hopefully that’ll change soon. I’ll try it out as soon as I can work up the willpower to push than unpleasant little “E” icon.

Seadragon is amazing : http://labs.live.com/seadragon.aspx

You can actually see the technology at work when viewing the Gary Faigin Art Studio. Try zooming into the artwork on display using your scroll wheel.

Would love to see this implemented in a virtual library that contains all the rare and famous books that are currently owned by different collectors & organizations. Scan them in super hi-rez and store them using Photosynth and allow anyone to walk in a virtual library, picking books and reading them.

@6 I’m guessing the MS shareholders hope that attitude doesn’t take hold across all of Microsoft. Surely MS invested some considerable resources in producing this. I’m guessing the shareholders would like to know how MS plans to recoup that investment.

@6 I’m guessing the MS shareholders hope that attitude doesn’t take hold across all of Microsoft. Surely MS invested some considerable resources in producing this. I’m guessing the shareholders would like to know how MS plans to recoup that investment.

This is just cool. Nuf said…

even though i photosynth perhaps wouldn’t be “useful”, microsoft still has the technology. and it could make its way into other products.

having said that, i could easly see me uploading (or syncing my flickr photos) with some sort of online database, and explore the locations from there via my and other photos. not productive-useful, but a cool experience.

even though i photosynth perhaps wouldn’t be “useful”, microsoft still has the technology. and it could make its way into other products.

having said that, i could easly see me uploading (or syncing my flickr photos) with some sort of online database, and explore the locations from there via my and other photos. not productive-useful, but a cool experience.

I too thought this had been demo’d months ago. However, I went to have a look, opened up IE (eugh) and sure enough nothing worked. Long gone are the days when I would spend hours trying to get something from MSFT to work so that I could be wowed -it’s 2006, not 1996 – so I guess that’s that for me.

Take some time off, you deserve it. Thanks for keeping us up to date on the state of the art.

Take some time off, you deserve it. Thanks for keeping us up to date on the state of the art.

I’m still waiting for something conneceted to the Novell/MSFT thing

LOL
I like how the Microsoft haters are trying to either belittle this project or avoid even trying it for fear that they just might like it. Amusing, but also pathetic.

LOL
I like how the Microsoft haters are trying to either belittle this project or avoid even trying it for fear that they just might like it. Amusing, but also pathetic.

right… I’m not one of those BTW…anyone would be able to tell that from my blog

It is very cool and innovative. Excellent job in 1. Design 2. User Interface 3. Concept 4. Technology 5. Utilization of basic research and academic research on potential commercial application 6. Marketing (Video & Demo).

The only drawbacks are installation required, availability in IE, need minimum cluster of similar photos to construct a more complete scenes.

Questions:
How can you sort out photos taken from different weather, time, and age? It is easy to photograph a preserved tourist spot because there will be minimal renovation to preserve historic buildings. How do you handle a city that constantly changing landscape? Good example is Hong Kong. The city pull down existing buildings and rebuild with newer buildings around the year. How do you handle constantly changing landscape?

There are many photo switches techniques, software and plug-in for online 360 degree viewing. What are the advantages of using Photostynth over existing techniques?

I wouldn’t be surprise if Adobe come up with similar photo viewing based on their Flash and Flex technology. Flash works well in all browsers and most users have Flash Players.

It is very cool and innovative. Excellent job in 1. Design 2. User Interface 3. Concept 4. Technology 5. Utilization of basic research and academic research on potential commercial application 6. Marketing (Video & Demo).

The only drawbacks are installation required, availability in IE, need minimum cluster of similar photos to construct a more complete scenes.

Questions:
How can you sort out photos taken from different weather, time, and age? It is easy to photograph a preserved tourist spot because there will be minimal renovation to preserve historic buildings. How do you handle a city that constantly changing landscape? Good example is Hong Kong. The city pull down existing buildings and rebuild with newer buildings around the year. How do you handle constantly changing landscape?

There are many photo switches techniques, software and plug-in for online 360 degree viewing. What are the advantages of using Photostynth over existing techniques?

I wouldn’t be surprise if Adobe come up with similar photo viewing based on their Flash and Flex technology. Flash works well in all browsers and most users have Flash Players.

@21: I believe Microsoft bought this in, at least according to the C9 video from July – http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=221703

Not that this makes it any less cool though

I have to agree, this is a super cool application and as has already been picked up on the use of this on the Internet, for example Flicker, could take input from Flicker and arrange a 3D collage that could be posted back to the Internet or your own blog – who knows maybe they’ll be some cool gadget/widget made available to exploit this technology?

I have to agree, this is a super cool application and as has already been picked up on the use of this on the Internet, for example Flicker, could take input from Flicker and arrange a 3D collage that could be posted back to the Internet or your own blog – who knows maybe they’ll be some cool gadget/widget made available to exploit this technology?

And the security/military applications of this tool is going to make waves, imagine if you can apply it to video material as well.. Minority Report

It’s kinda clunky, but man, it is the future. The obvious thing would be, as others have mentioned, to point this badboy at Flickr’s enormous database of photos and render, you know, the whole planet.

It’s kinda clunky, but man, it is the future. The obvious thing would be, as others have mentioned, to point this badboy at Flickr’s enormous database of photos and render, you know, the whole planet.

Precursor to Blade Runner…

THis reminds of the scene in BR where Dekker(sic?) inserts a photo of a living room into a machine and is able to maneuver to ‘uncaptured implied areas’ within the photo..pretty cool.

That being said, for all the gee-wizziness about Photosynth, the technology gets in the way of enjoying the actual images. And by that i mean the shimmering silhouettes and dynaamic boxes distract and overshadow the content of the images themselves.

Also, the install leaves much to be desired. Hopefully they’ll have an extensiion for Firefox, which everyone knows, is the the best browser available…