Washington (DC) - Microsoft announced yesterday that CNN would be using its Photosynth technology, enabled via Silverlight, to create a collage of the inauguration in 3D. The website shows a stunning 3D user-controlled or automatic navigation through a series of still photos, filling in the blanks and computing viewer angles to present a larger scene than each picture took individually. The technology also adjusts for color, brightness and resolution variations.
The Photosynth application takes several disparate 2D pictures and, through an extension of the Photo Tourism developed algorithms now applied to the Silverlight browser plug-in, creates a 3D animation sequence (kind of like a slide-show). The viewer takes a virtual tour through the areas shown in the pictures automatically. In addition, each frame can be rotated and scrolled around to examine the full panorama of images available.
Since the software uses 3D algorithms, it automatically adjusts for angles, lighting, colors and other effects which make its 3D photo collage appear less like a pasted-together 2D photo collage and more like a smooth animation sequence.
Microsoft's Photosynth website describes how Photosynth work here:
In my opinion, the presentation generated by this sequence is impressive (quite possibly one step away from truly being a WOW! product). It would be interesting to see this ability applied to authoring tools like Windows Movie Maker, which allowed a movie to be generated solely from still images arranged by a director choosing the sequence of image displays, durations, pans, etc. Another slick extension of this technology would be true 3D extrapolation from computed data from multiple angles of the same area, then saved in a form PowerPoint could use.
In the past, CNN has also worked with additional stunning 3D effects, using holograms for the first time on live television during the November election.
See Microsoft's Live Labs history of Photosynth and the CNN website with the guided tour collage (requires Silverlight). See also TG Daily's previous coverage of Photosynth.
The Photosynth application takes several disparate 2D pictures and, through an extension of the Photo Tourism developed algorithms now applied to the Silverlight browser plug-in, creates a 3D animation sequence (kind of like a slide-show). The viewer takes a virtual tour through the areas shown in the pictures automatically. In addition, each frame can be rotated and scrolled around to examine the full panorama of images available.
Since the software uses 3D algorithms, it automatically adjusts for angles, lighting, colors and other effects which make its 3D photo collage appear less like a pasted-together 2D photo collage and more like a smooth animation sequence.
Microsoft's Photosynth website describes how Photosynth work here:
"Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines images for similarities to each other and uses that information to estimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point each photo was taken from. With this information, we recreate the space and use it as a canvas to display and navigate through the photos. Photosynth was inspired by the breakthrough research on Photo Tourism from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research. This work pioneered the use of photogrammetry to power a cinematic and immersive experience."
In my opinion, the presentation generated by this sequence is impressive (quite possibly one step away from truly being a WOW! product). It would be interesting to see this ability applied to authoring tools like Windows Movie Maker, which allowed a movie to be generated solely from still images arranged by a director choosing the sequence of image displays, durations, pans, etc. Another slick extension of this technology would be true 3D extrapolation from computed data from multiple angles of the same area, then saved in a form PowerPoint could use.
In the past, CNN has also worked with additional stunning 3D effects, using holograms for the first time on live television during the November election.
See Microsoft's Live Labs history of Photosynth and the CNN website with the guided tour collage (requires Silverlight). See also TG Daily's previous coverage of Photosynth.
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