14 DAY TRIAL // The technology behind Microsoft Photosynth has evolved past the stage of simple Technology Preview and is now available in its final form. Fathered by Blaise Ag?era y Arcas, who joined Microsoft Live Labs in 2006, Photosynth is designed to permit end users to build navigable three dimensional spaces out of 2D digital photographs. In fact, Microsoft is promising nothing short of a breakthrough visual medium via the "Synths" created by users. Synth is of course a new term coined by Microsoft to refer to collections of digital images put together into a 3D virtual environment.
"So how does Photosynth work? Photosynth analyzes your photos for similarities to your other photos in the set and then uses the information to estimate where the photos were taken from. Photosynth then re-creates the place the photos were taken and uses that as a canvas to display your photos. The work done in analyzing your photos is done via the above mentioned Photosynth plug-in," revealed Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc.
As a Technology Preview, end users were permitted to access the technology and Synths put together by Microsoft and its partners, but not to upload their own photographs and create personal collections. Well, this is no longer the case. As of August 20, the Redmond company allows all users with a Windows Live ID to leverage Photosynth in order to customize Synths. According to LeBlanc, Microsoft is offering no less than 20GB of free online storage space for uploading images. A Synth can be put together out of 20 to 300 images that have common visual elements, permitting Photosynth to construct the 3D space.
"To view and create Synths, a 7MB plug-in must be installed first from either Internet Explorer (6 or 7) or Mozilla Firefox (2 or 3)," he added. "The Photosynth plug-in does all of the processing - or "synthing" - of your photos prior to uploading the results to the Photosynth website. The installation of this plug-in also puts a link to Photosynth on your Start Menu for quick Photosynth access!"
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