Photosynth

[THE TUBA]

Howdy! If you are interested in photography, check out this website:
http://photosynth.net

It is essentially a program that finds common textures to stitch pictures together, creating an interactive reconstruction of the object(s) photographed. My first attempt to synth tuba pictures failed, but I'll give another go with a lacquer horn next.

Synth with pictures I took of the Chicago Skyline

[TubaCoopa]

A very interesting concept, but to get any real concept of 3D, you'd need thousands of pictures, which doesn't seem worthwhile.

[THE TUBA]

Here is an article that I think describes Photosynth a little more concisely. Unless there have been changes since this article was written, the technology is apparently only available to PC users with a Windows Live ID (@msn.com/@hotmail.com email address, I think...).

Microsoft on Wednesday opened up its Photosynth 3D photo offering to the public.

Photosynth takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs them in a 3D environment. It could take Flickr photos of a monument like Notre Dame Cathedral from hundreds of separate accounts and compile them into one, continuous shot of the cathedral and its surroundings.

Users can install Photosynth at photosynth.com. All photos that are added to the site will be public and visible to anyone on the Internet. It is currently only available on Windows-based machines running XP and Vista, and users will have to sign up for a Windows Live ID to access Photosynth.

Microsoft first previewed Photosynth at its 2006 financial analyst meeting, several months after it acquired Seattle-based Seadragon Software, which developed technology to display large images on computers and handheld devices. Microsoft later previewed a more in-depth look at last year's TED conference.

It is "creating hyperlinks between images and it's doing that based on the content inside of the images," Blaise Aguera y Arcas, an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, said during his TED presentation. "When you do a web search for images, you type in phrases and the text on the web page is carrying lots of information [about that photograph]. What if that picture links to your pictures" via Photosynth?

"This is something that grows in complexity as people use it," he said. "Your own photos are getting tagged with metadata."

The Photosynth Web site includes a photography guide for those just getting stated as well as a downloadable video that demonstrates how to synch.

"Because Photosynth is so new, you will probably run into an occasional bug or hiccup," the Live Labs team warned in a blog post. "Whether you have a brilliant idea or find a bug, please let us know. We'll do our best to address them.

[TubaCoopa]

Unless there have been changes since this article was written, the technology is apparently only available to PC users with a Windows Live ID (@msn.com/@hotmail.com email address, I think...).

I don't think so. I downloaded the program, and I definitely don't have a Windows Live ID. (Unless I was already assigned one, those little buggers)