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Photosynth is a discontinued app and service from
Microsoft Live Labs Microsoft Live Labs was a partnership between MSN and Microsoft Research that focused on applied research for Internet products and services at Microsoft. Live Labs was headed by Dr. Gary William Flake, who prior to joining Microsoft was a princi ...
and the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
that analyzes
digital photograph Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is s ...
s and generates a three-dimensional model of the photos and a
point cloud Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...
of a photographed object. Pattern recognition components compare portions of images to create points, which are then compared to convert the image into a model. Users are able to view and generate their own models using a software tool available for download at the Photosynth website.


History

Photosynth is based on Photo Tourism, a research project by University of Washington graduate student Noah Snavely. Shortly after Microsoft's acquisition of Seadragon in early 2006, that team began work on Photosynth, under the direction of Seadragon founder
Blaise Agüera y Arcas Blaise Agüera y Arcas (born 1975) is a software engineer, software architect, and designer. He is an authority in computer vision, machine intelligence, and computational photography and presents regularly at conferences. He appears regularly ...
. Microsoft released a free tech preview version on November 9, 2006. Users could view models generated by Microsoft or the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, but not create their own models at that time. Microsoft teamed up with
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
on August 6, 2007 allowing users to preview its Photosynth technology showing the
Space Shuttle Endeavour Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-105) is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and ...
. On August 20, 2007, a preview showing the tiles of Endeavour during the backflip process was made available for viewing. On August 20, 2008, Microsoft officially released Photosynth to the public, allowing users to upload their images and generate their own Photosynth models. In March 2010, Photosynth added support for
gigapixel A gigapixel image is a digital image bitmap composed of one billion (109) pixels (picture elements), 1000 times the information captured by a 1 megapixel digital camera. A square image of 31,623 pixels in width and height is one gigapixel. Cur ...
panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
s stitched in Microsoft ICE. The panoramas use Seadragon based technology similar to the system already used in synths. In July 2015, Microsoft announced it would be retiring the Photosynth mobile apps. As Photosynth prepared to shut down in early 2017,
Mapillary Mapillary is a service for sharing crowdsourced geotagged photos, developed by remote company Mapillary AB, based in Malmö, Sweden. Mapillary was launched in 2013 and acquired by Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) in 2020. This is one of the ...
, a crowdsourced street-level imaging platform, reached out to the Photosynth community with their Photosynth-to-Mapillary blog post, and the official Photosynth Twitter account suggested users "check them out". On 6 February 2017, Microsoft decommissioned the Photosynth website and services. On 20 December 2017, Photosynth returned as a feature of the Microsoft Pix app. In the development of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft's Photosynth technology returned to recreate buildings and terrain across the entire world.


Process

The Photosynth technology works in two steps. The first step involves the analysis of multiple photographs taken of the same area. Each photograph is processed using an
interest point detection In computer vision and image processing, a feature is a piece of information about the content of an image; typically about whether a certain region of the image has certain properties. Features may be specific structures in the image such as p ...
and matching algorithm developed by
Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
which is similar in function to
UBC The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...
's
Scale-invariant feature transform The scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) is a computer vision algorithm to detect, describe, and match local ''features'' in images, invented by David Lowe in 1999. Applications include object recognition, robotic mapping and navigation, ima ...
. This process identifies specific features, for example the corner of a window frame or a door handle. Features in one photograph are then compared to and matched with the same features in the other photographs. Thus photographs of the same areas are identified. By analyzing the position of matching features within each photograph, the program can identify which photographs belong on which side of others. By analyzing subtle differences in the relationships between the features (angle, distance, etc.), the program identifies the 3D position of each feature, as well as the position and angle at which each photograph was taken. This process is known scientifically as
bundle adjustment In photogrammetry and computer stereo vision, bundle adjustment is simultaneous refining of the 3D coordinates describing the scene geometry, the parameters of the relative motion, and the optical characteristics of the camera(s) employed to acq ...
and is commonly used in the field of
photogrammetry Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...
, with similar products available such as Imodeller and D-Sculptor. This first step is extremely computationally intensive, but only has to be performed once on each set of photographs. The second step involves the display of and navigation through the 3D point cloud of features identified in the first step. This is done with the publicly downloadable Photosynth viewer. The viewer resides on a client computer and maintains a connection to a server that stores the original photographs. It enables a user to, among other things, see any of the photographs from their original vantage point. It incorporates
DeepZoom Deep Zoom is a technology developed by Microsoft for efficiently transmitting and viewing images. It allows users to pan around and zoom in a large, high resolution image or a large collection of images. It reduces the time required for initial lo ...
technology Microsoft obtained through its acquisition of Seadragon in January 2006. The Seadragon technology enables smooth zooming into the high-resolution photographs without downloading them to the user's machine. The Photosynth
Direct 3D Direct3D is a graphics application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows. Part of DirectX, Direct3D is used to render three-dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3D uses hardwa ...
-based viewing software is only available to the
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
,
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
and
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
operating systems. However, the team released a
Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich web applications, similar to Adobe Inc., Adobe's Run time environment, runtime, Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is still available for a v ...
version of the viewer which has succeeded the D3D viewer as the main option to view photosynths.


Mobile apps

As of March 2009, user uploaded Photosynth collections were available for viewing on iPhones using iSynth (3D) or Seadragon Mobile (2D only). The Photosynth application was also available from the
App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...
to download on
iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...
and iPhone. In May 2012, Microsoft released a Photosynth App for its mobile platform,
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...
. On July 10, 2015, Microsoft announced that they are retiring the Photosynth Mobile Apps, removing them from their stores, and are no longer supporting or updating them. While the Photosynth platform was shut down in early 2017, its features re-appeared in the fall within the Microsoft Pix app for iOS, however as of late 2020, the Photosynth features appear to no longer be part of the Microsoft Pix app.


Capabilities

The latest generation of photosynths are easy to capture, as photographs taken by any regular digital camera or mobile phone can be uploaded to Photosynth. Users have the option to
geotag Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data u ...
their digital shots on sites such as
Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...
and then upload them to the online Photosynth web service. Images uploaded on Photosynth give people the ability to seamlessly view landmarks, public spaces and objects from all sides. *Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle *Zoom in or out of a photo *See where pictures were taken in relation to one another *Smoothly change viewing angle between nearby photos *Smoothly zoom in and out of high-resolution photos *Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing


In the media

* On April 30, 2008, Photosynth was featured in the episode '' Admissions'' of the television show CSI: New York. *
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
utilized Photosynth for a user-contributed 3D vision of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the President of the United States. * In the Angels & Demons "Path of Illumination Contest," Photosynth is used as well as advertised in the website. * In the
MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...
's coverage of the 70th anniversary of the
RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
victory in the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
, a Photosynth hangar of some of the fighter planes from the battle was built. A series of Photosynths have also been created for the
Imperial War Museum Duxford Imperial War Museum Duxford is a branch of the Imperial War Museum near Duxford in Cambridgeshire, England. Britain's largest aviation museum, Duxford houses the museum's large exhibits, including nearly 200 aircraft, military vehicles, artill ...
so that web users could experience the planes up close from a range of angles.


See also

*
Microsoft Image Composite Editor Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitching, image stitcher made by the Microsoft Research division of Microsoft Corporation. The application takes a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location ...
— a free advanced panorama stitching system *
Seadragon Software Seadragon Software was a team within the Microsoft Live Labs. Its product, Seadragon, is a web optimized visualization technology that allows graphics and photos to be smoothly browsed, regardless of their size. Seadragon is the technology powerin ...
*
Hugin (software) Hugin () is a cross-platform open source panorama photo stitching and HDR merging program developed by Pablo d'Angelo and others. It is a GUI front-end for Helmut Dersch's Panorama Tools and Andrew Mihal's '' Enblend'' and ''Enfuse''. Stitching ...
— a cross-platform open source panorama stitching system *
QuickTime VR QuickTime VR (also known as QTVR) is an image file format developed by Apple Inc. for QuickTime, and discontinued along with QuickTime 7. It allows the creation and viewing of VR photography, photographically captured panoramas, and the viewing o ...
*
MeshLab MeshLab is a 3D mesh processing software system that is oriented to the management and processing of unstructured large meshes and provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering, and converting these kinds of meshes ...
— a cross-platform open source mesh processing tool that allows to import
point cloud Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...
s reconstructed by Photosynth


References


External links


Official University of Washington Photo Tourism Site
{{Microsoft Research Labs, state=uncollapsed Microsoft Live Labs Photo software Photo stitching software 3D graphics software Panorama software Virtual reality Discontinued Microsoft software Photogrammetry software