Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Microsoft, web 2.0
Photosynth: Microsoft's answer to Google Street View, with a twist
Photosynth, the much-anticipated three-dimensional photo experience from Microsoft Live Labs, has finally launched. "Synths," as they're called, are series of photos stitched together by a fancy algorithm that compares them to one another to create an immersive 360-degree viewing experience. You can start exploring Photosynth on most Windows PCs (and some Macs running virtual machines) now.Photosynth is integrated with Live Maps, as well, so you can view other people's synths of various locations, right from the map. That's what's causing people to compare Photosynth to Google Street View, which is the closest product out there right now. But Google Street View doesn't let you create anything on your own, with a regular digital camera. Keep an eye on Photosynth as -- I know this is clichéd, but it may be true -- a game-changing technology.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ao said 12:48PM on 11-10-2008
Didn't this launch a few months ago?
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Todd said 1:00PM on 11-10-2008
Street View will be made available to user photos, guaranteed ( http://www.panoramio.com ). The fact that Photosynth does it first means nothing.
Flickr has had un-stitched user photo up since 2006:
http://tagmaps.research.yahoo.com/worldexplorer.php
P.S. Good luck getting one thin dime out of Microsoft after they take your photos, monetize them and encrypt them into a locked, proprietary format - Read Photosynth's ToS!
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Quikboy said 11:50PM on 11-10-2008
What's with your constant MS-hatred?
"The fact that Photosynth does it first means nothing"
- I'm not sure, but I'm quite sure you're one of those guys that love to complain how M$ always copies this and that, and never does something by themselves originally. Live Maps already has a Panoramio-like feature called Collections.
The 2nd link is pretty pointless as well. Photos don't even exactly show where they appear from on the map, they just show up in a separate pane based on the area shown.
Why would you expect to get any compensation from Microsoft for posting photos? Are you saying there aren't people that would love to share their photos, and see it appear on Live Maps? Where do you get this idea that MS will "monetize them and encrypt them into a locked, proprietary format"? So far it's free, and I don't see why it won't stay free.
You're just pulling straws here. Why not admit that Microsoft has a really neat 3D photo panorama technology? Just you're typical MS hate.
Berty said 1:16PM on 11-10-2008
Old news surely?
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Matias Korhonen said 1:23PM on 11-10-2008
I have to say that the process for creating a "synth", as they call it, is probably one of the ways it could have been implemented.
I mean seriously:
1. Create an account and sign in
2. Download and install the Photosynth software (which includes plug-ins for both Firefox and IE. God forbid they could have based the viewing part of software that users might already have. Flash, JavaScript or something... Both viewing and creating are Windows only experiences.)
3. Select your photos on disk in the Photosynth program.
4. ALL the photos you selected are uploaded to the Photosynth servers (Why the separate software for your PC?)
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Jamus said 2:20PM on 11-10-2008
Not to keep beating a dead horse, but...
I was guessing that this would be opened up to Macs once Silverlight 2.0 was released as another means to get Silverlight downloads.
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