{"id":1130,"date":"2011-04-03T16:53:48","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T20:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2011-04-03T16:53:48","modified_gmt":"2011-04-03T20:53:48","slug":"stitch-your-photos-into-something-special-a-cloudeight-freeware-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/stitch-your-photos-into-something-special-a-cloudeight-freeware-pick\/","title":{"rendered":"Stitch your photos into something special – A Cloudeight freeware pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Normally, we write a long spiel about the freeware pick of the week, \t\tbecause most developers don’t have much to say about their own program, \t\tor its written in sorta English by some guy in Gabeeziland, and English \t\tis his 4th language. But today, we’re happy to tell you, Microsoft \t\tdoesn’t suffer from the laconic tendencies of most software developers – \t\tin fact, by the time you get done reading their screed you’re going to \t\tthink we wrote it, but we didn’t.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So rather than give you our wordy description, we’re going to bring in \t\tMicrosoft’s own Photosynth developers to tell you, in detail, what \t\tPhotosynth is and what it does. Grab a cup of coffee and sit back and \t\trelax, folks. Microsoft’s people are going are challenging us for top \t\tprize in February’s yammering contest.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photosynth creates an amazing new experience with nothing more than a \t\tbunch of photos. Creating a synth allows you to share the places and \t\tthings you love using the cinematic quality of a movie, the control of a \t\tvideo game, and the mind-blowing detail of the real world.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s a quiet creek in the woods of Pennsylvania, or the grandeur \t\tof the interior of St Paul\u2019s cathedral, Photosynth puts you there like \t\tnothing else can. It can capture the sweeping scale of a mile of the \t\tGrand Canal in Venice, and focus in on the exquisite rot at the \t\twaterline of a beautifully decaying palazzo doorway.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just for spaces and places. Photosynth is an amazing way to \t\tshare the full juicy details of the stuff in your life….<\/p>\n

How Does it Work?<\/p>\n

In simple terms, Photosynth allows you to take a bunch of photos of the \t\tsame scene or object and automagically stitch them all together into one \t\tbig interactive 3D viewing experience that you can share with anyone on \t\tthe web.<\/p>\n

Photosynth is a potent mixture of two independent breakthroughs: the \t\tability to reconstruct the scene or object from a bunch of flat \t\tphotographs, and the technology to bring that experience to virtually \t\tanyone over the Internet.<\/p>\n

Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines \t\timages for similarities to each other and uses that information to \t\testimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point each photo was \t\ttaken from. With this information, we recreate the space and use it as a \t\tcanvas to display and navigate through the photos.<\/p>\n

Providing that experience requires viewing a LOT of data though\u2014much \t\tmore than you generally get at any one time by surfing someone\u2019s photo \t\talbum on the web. That\u2019s where our Seadragon\u2122 technology comes in: \t\tdelivering just the pixels you need, exactly when you need them. It \t\tallows you to browse through dozens of 5, 10, or 100(!) megapixel photos \t\teffortlessly, without fiddling with a bunch of thumbnails and waiting \t\taround for everything to load.<\/p>\n

We deliver this immersive viewing experience to users on multiple \t\toperating systems by tapping into the power of Silverlight, Microsoft\u2019s \t\trich web application technology.<\/p>\n

Photosynth is really two remarkable technical achievements in one \t\tproduct: a viewer for downloading and navigating these complex visual \t\tspaces and a “synther” for creating them in the first place. Together \t\tthey make something that seems impossible quite possible: reconstructing \t\tthe 3D world from flat photographs.<\/p>\n

We grew out of a passionate little startup of two dozen people in \t\tMicrosoft Live Labs. Although, we moved into the larger Virtual Earth \t\tgroup, we\u2019re still a small team of scientists, engineers, and designers \t\tworking hard to deliver on Photosynth\u2019s amazing potential.<\/p>\n

Photosynth was inspired by the breakthrough research on Photo Tourism \t\tfrom the University of Washington and Microsoft Research. This work \t\tpioneered the use of photogrammetry to power a cinematic and immersive \t\texperience.<\/p>\n

Sign up, start synthing, share your passions, explore your ideas\u2026 Where \t\twe go from here will be shaped by your feedback & support.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Wow! That was quite a thorough description, wasn’t it? Be sure you read \t\tthe descriptions of the different kinds of accounts. The free account \t\tshould be more than enough for most of you – just be sure you read and \t\tunderstand the differences in account types. OK? Now, if you’re ready \t\tfor your creative juices to start flowing or if you just want to mess \t\taround and have some fun, sign up for a free Photosynth account right now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The skinny:<\/p>\n

Photosynth<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/strong>For Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32\/64bit)
\nOnline image editing with with twist
\nNot a download<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Normally, we write a long spiel about the freeware pick of the week, because most developers don’t have much to say about their own program, or its written in sorta English by some guy in Gabeeziland, and English is his 4th language. But today, we’re happy to tell you, Microsoft doesn’t suffer from the laconic tendencies of most\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[75,778,146],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1132,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions\/1132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}