Microsoft Photosynth turns photo collections into 3D walkthroughs

February 26, 2007 · Filed Under Reviews · Comment
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Based on a very powerful piece of software from University of Washington, Microsoft’s Photosynth is able to reconstruct a 3D virtual spaces by analyzing similar photos from sites like Flickr. The software allows the user to annotate an object in an image as if he or she is navigating through a 3D virtual space.

The software basically analyzes a group of images and looks for similar distinctive features across photos. When a particular feature is found in multiple images the 3D positional data can be calculated and the photos can be arranged in an interactive manner like in the above screenshots allowing you to pan around and zoom in or out on certain areas.

Currently the software is in Beta version and chances of it running on your comp is slim, it is full of bugs and well, no pain no gain. The good news is, it works with Firefox and you need a good graphic card to run it smoothly.

You know, this could be big. If they manage to somehow integrate this into Microsoft Maps then it would a killer success. Imagine surfing into a virtual spaces and zoom into details of a particular building.