Microsoft's Photosynth Tech

This is something I've been waiting quite a while for, but also something I assumed would be broken promises and unrealized potential. I'm glad to say that I was wrong.

The Photosynth tech from Microsoft started out as a small research project about new ways to display digital photos. Months ago, they showed a tech demo of what they were planning that looked magnificent. Similar to how panoramic photos are made, which I've shown before, Photosynth takes a group of photos with like elements and creates an interactive mash-up that really makes you feel like you're almost there.

All that is required is a simple browser plug-in for viewing, and client-side software for creating the "synths". Both are contained within one small downloadable package available on the Photosynth Website. In this first release of Photosynth, all synths are stored online and public, so keep that in mind when snapping photos.

The only real tip to creating a good synth is to take a large amount of overlapping photos. Differing texture works best. Objects with repeating texture such as grass or water don't work very well. Beyond that, you just point the software to your photos and hit go. A few minutes (quite a while depending on the size) later it's created the synth and uploaded it to your account on the Photosynth website, which requires a Live ID of course.

I suggest you go to the site and check out some of the spectacular synths that have been created. Some of which are of exotic places that make me feel like I'm on vacation. If you'd rather see someting a little more boring, however, check out the two synths I made. As an initial test, I just used some existing photos from a NASCAR race, and some from a mountain top picnic my wife and I went on. They turned out half decent. After that, I took a ton of photos of my home and created a synth from those, but it didn't turn out well at all. I'm thinking it wasn't too good at linking photos of grass and vinyl siding together. Two very repeating textures. I guess some more trial and error will help. The synths are embedded, so if you can't see them, then of course you need the plugin. Following are the results:

NASCAR At Bristol:



Mountain Top Picnic: