5 Comments on “Photosynthe Prototype”

1. mmacken says:

   June 6, 2007 at 10:38 am

   This is definitely worth watching — it links two-dimensional images from various sources and combines them to make three-dimensional virtual spaces. There is also amazing zoom capability powered by Seadragon. Here’s the blurb from the TED website:

   Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. “Perhaps the most amazing demo I’ve seen this year,” wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.
2. Bryan Loar says:

   June 6, 2007 at 11:38 am

   I love how they used images from a social network (Flickr) to create the Notre Dame “multidimensional space”. –the whole sum is greater than its parts thing.

   However, I’m not sure I see the advantage of having one object’s metadata enhance other objects within the collection. If someone uses “Bob” under the common element Description because “Bob” is in the picture, that’s not going to enhance the collection. I guess tag clouds kind of alleviate this problem, but it still leaves a lot of noise. Also, if the image is taken out of the collection, the metadata that “enhanced” the collection was probably not written to the individual image (something that can be done with JPEGs & TIFFs using the portable XMP schema). This is probably good because I’m sure I wouldn’t want Bob tied to all images.

   Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that with regards to metadata the sum is not always greater than its parts–at least to me!

   I’d love to hear anybody else’s take on this or the problems of metadata regarding the issue of whole/part relationships.
3. Bryan Loar says:

   February 5, 2008 at 11:31 am

   An article on Blaise Aguera y Arcas work just came out this week in Newsweek. Check it out here – http://www.newsweek.com/id/105532/page/1
4. Bryan Loar says:

   March 6, 2008 at 12:14 pm

   SeaDragon is now used to render “high-resolution images of Hard Rock’s memorabilia and allows fans the ability to zoom in on tiny details.”

   Trendwatching Article
5. Bryan Loar says:

   September 3, 2008 at 3:18 pm

   You can now create your own “synths” at http://photosynth.net

   HOWEVER, you need to download Microsoft’s proprietary program to create and view them Furthermore, you have to have a Windows Live ID >:( Moreover, it’s only available to PCs :’(

   Uh…maybe MS buying them wasn’t so great.