Microsoft Photosynth Upgraded

Microsoft has upgraded Photosynth, introducing Overhead View, a new major feature, complemented by an array of various but smaller enhancements. Specifically, Overhead View is designed to deliver an entirely new perspective over synths. Microsoft Photosynth is a service that allows users to build navigable 3D spaces by collaging together 2D images. Until the latest update delivered on October 7th, 2009, synths could only be viewed from the perspective of the photographer. This limitation is no longer valid.

“If you’ve used Photosynth you know that it automatically calculates a “cloud” of 3D points representing the features matched between photos. Our new overhead view lets you turn the photos off, and puts your point of view immediately above the scene,” revealed David Gedye from the Photosynth Team (via LiveSide).

Microsoft has made Overhead View more than just a new feature set up to allow end users to view the geometry of a certain scene. In this regard, the Redmond company has noted that Overhead View delivers additional navigation options. Users can leverage Overhead View in order to jump around from one image of the synth to another. When the mouse is hovering over an area of the Overhead View that contains an image, a thumbnail of that image will be displayed, allowing users to jump right back in the synth.

Gedye enumerated additional “highlights: An all-new, Silverlight-3 based viewer. It's noticeably smoother and makes fewer network requests, so performance is better. The “View” button on the synther now automatically logs you in to the Web site and takes you directly into the editor so that you can complete title/description, and give your synth highlights and a geotag. Geotagging is now easier and you can even scale and rotate your synth in the map in a process we call “geoalignment”. Multiword search no longer sucks. That’s harsh, but if you’ve ever tried to find a synth of “Green Lake” or “Smith Rock”, you would have been as frustrated as we were. It’s now much better.”

Microsoft Photosynth 2.0109.1002.1657 is available for download here.

Photosynth Overhead View from Microsoft Photosynth on Vimeo.