Photosynth - Do your Own!

This was brought up by another member in a seperate discussion.

I didn't see any recently started threads about it, so figured I'd post it, but apparently you can now upload photos to create your own photosynth... that is if you can get through... their servers have been overwhelmed it appears.

www.photosynth.com

Quote from their blog:

Thanks for posting! I'll check it out Sunday or Monday, guess the website will be on air again by then

It was up last night for awhile, and I was able to sign up for it and view other people's posts. They rate how "synthy" the set of photos is... (if they all link up somehow, I think its 100% synthy.)

The way it works is you install a small application (you need a windows live id), choose the images, and the synth takes place on your computer. But currently it can only be viewed after its been uploaded to their site. Funny, but there's an awful lot of sets of uploads that are 0% synthy or very very low; looks like people are just uploading completely random sets of images, and using it like a typical photo-sharing site... needlessly adding to the volume of traffic on the site. Perhaps Microsoft should restrict the uploading unless sets are some minimum percent "synthy."

Its been around for a while, watched the press release on this and they plan to get involved with photo sharing companies like Flickr to use them to recreate areas around the world which does not need a dedicated database as the demo does now but rather extract images from the Internet and build it as it goes along.

A very interesting concept none the less.

elysium wrote in post #6155271
Its been around for a while, watched the press release on this and they plan to get involved with photo sharing companies like Flickr to use them to recreate areas around the world which does not need a dedicated database as the demo does now but rather extract images from the Internet and build it as it goes along.

A very interesting concept none the less.

Yeah, I know its been around... but this isn't just the demo where we viewed pre-generated synths (which you never knew how much handholding was needed to get that result; ) you can now upload your own, so its a big first step. It's pretty basic now... only from a single set of your own images. But think it will become VERY interesting when you can do ongoing, collaborative collections; as you mention.

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #6155642
Yeah, I know its been around... but this isn't just the demo where we viewed pre-generated synths (which you never knew how much handholding was needed to get that result; ) you can now upload your own, so its a big first step. It's pretty basic now... only from a single set of your own images. But think it will become VERY interesting when you can do ongoing, collaborative collections; as you mention.

Interesting. Another step in an evolution of interactivity. Will have to give this a try. I am still pretty cynical about this until I see a commercial version. If it is true that you could make your own synth, it would be pretty tricky covering so many angles. I suppose it will have some sort of complexity level.

Would be interesting to have a synth of the WHOLE of the Nurburgring. Would be a few GB in size!

elysium wrote in post #6155679
Interesting. Another step in an evolution of interactivity. Will have to give this a try. I am still pretty cynical about this until I see a commercial version. If it is true that you could make your own synth, it would be pretty tricky covering so many angles. I suppose it will have some sort of complexity level.

Would be interesting to have a synth of the WHOLE of the Nurburgring. Would be a few GB in size!

I uploaded one of my own of about 6 images from Colorado, and it did pretty well. (Not specatacular images by any means... just the first pano series I found in my library.) Their servers have been hit hard, so it stalled while uploading another test of 20 images... but there's already a pretty large gallery of synths up there... ranging from some very good and extensive from the likes of Nat. Geo... others pretty poor from people who apparently don't know what it is supposed to do.

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #6155714
I uploaded one of my own of about 6 images from Colorado, and it did pretty well. (Not specatacular images by any means... just the first pano series I found in my library.) Their servers have been hit hard, so it stalled while uploading another test of 20 images... but there's already a pretty large gallery of synths up there... ranging from some very good and extensive from the likes of Nat. Geo... others pretty poor from people who apparently don't know what it is supposed to do.

Hmm, i can see people abusing it but for things like an online gallery for a surveyor to see a house remotely would be interesting. Hopefully we see some premium services which might help the strain on servers.

Im sure Microsoft have it figured out. I have to give them credit where credit is due, they are onto something.

elysium wrote in post #6155779
Hopefully we see some premium services which might help the strain on servers.

Plus, its a free service and hosting right now, so complaints about server problems in the tech news right now (which are making a big deal about the first day being such a problem) are overblown... it's not like its a $100 cloud-platform crashing out of the gate (can anyone say Apple or MobileME[Ss]?)

Hmmmmmmm crap, wanted to (finally) check this out... Windows only....

Just gave it a try for the first time. Very impressive. I just need to hunt for some pics that I can use with it now. I'm going to do a full 360 of Glasgow's People's Palace tomorrow.

MY FIRST ATTEMPT

Gebruikersnaam wrote in post #6213644
Hmmmmmmm crap, wanted to (finally) check this out... Windows only....

From what I understand, this is just the initial release, a first "beta" if you will... from their 'About' page, MS DOES intend to add support for more platforms in the future.