Photosynth

June 11, 2007 at 10:12 am · Filed under Visual Arts, Visualization

There are a few times when something comes along and kicks you in the ass, and you say, “man, that’s truly amazing.” (See: live child birth, Rocky IV, etc.) Although perhaps, not in the same tier as live child birth, Microsoft Live Labs has been developing an application called Photosynth, which “takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.” It is more or less a hijacked, 3D version of all those sweet collage panoramas you made from site visits with your 35mm, only now each picture is given a point value in space, and you can move through it as if you were there. If the simultaneity of speed and quality can be maintained (each picture is able to be zoomed in on for progressively higher resolutions), then this is bang-up.

Quite incredible, and I think the potential implications are fairly evident as to what this could mean for the ways photos are used and spaces visualized. As architects, I think also far reaching, not only in terms of the documentation of existing space, but virtual space through renderings.

Czech out the demo here, and the TED talk below…

MS

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