“What if your photo collection was an entry point into the world, like a wormhole that you could jump through and explore…”
No, this is not a tagline for an upcoming sci-fi film. This is the tagline for a breakthrough technology brought to you by… Microsoft?
The technology is called Photosynth. It’s an application that is able to map hundreds of photos geographically in three-dimensional space. The software creates “orbits” that allow users to rotate their viewpoint and have the photos change based on the new perspective. The result is the ability for users to explore the photos similar to the way they would navigate the actual place in real life. Basically, if enough photos are taken of the same famous monument, like say the Eiffel Tower, you are able to see it from all angles and zoom levels.
Photosynth is actually a 2 year old project and the Microsoft site is jam packed with demo videos, but the incredible tech preview that just debuted this week at SIGGRAPH 2008 kicked it up a notch. The new Photosynth demo features color correction, smoothing, and time of day. Just sit back, and be amazed:

The awesomeness of Photosynth is ultimately reliant on the wealth of photography. With the popularity of photo sharing sites and the continual advancement of mobile phone cameras, that might not be such a big problem afterall. And since Yahoo! owns Flickr, it certainly makes one rethink the value of the Microsoft-Yahoo! takeover, as well as their stakes in Facebook. Maybe Microsoft does know what their doing afterall.
Marta Strickland