Microsoft announced its Photosynth project long back. A lot of people had seen it already. Even I had blogged about it a year back.  Two days back, Microsoft released the Photosynth for the general public. The project is now out of the beta.

What is Photosynth?

Well, here is how Microsoft describes Photosynth -

“You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark. With a nothing more than digital camera and some inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your synth is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos.”

Well, though the definition is quite simple, you have to see it to understand what it exactly does. Check out the video at the end of this post.

There are thousands of cameras in the world. Those millions of cameras have shot billions of pictures of nearly everything that exists. So for example, I used to live in Agra till my college time. (OK, I’m NOT making this up, it really is my howtown). I have made tens of trips to the Taj Mahal. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with relatives, often alone, too. And on various occasions, wither me or someone with me had clicked pictures of the Taj Mahal. From various positions. Similarly, hundreds of tourists who have visited the Taj everyday must have clicked thousands of pictures of the Taj Mahal. Again, from various positions and angles. Coming to think of it, the Taj Mahal has been photographed from every viewable angle. Come to think of it, if you want to watch the Taj Mahal, in pictures, you can probably watch it on your computer itself. All of them. Provides you have access to all those pictures and you know which picture fits where. You can then model a complete virtual Taj Mahal, putting these pictures together. Well, that’s exactly what Microsoft did with Photosynth.

Is it good ?

Well, try it yourself. Just goto http://photosynth.com/ and click on any of the monuments listed there. I chose Taj

a.) ‘coz it’s my hometown

b.) ‘coz it’s my hometown

c.) ‘coz it’s my hometown

and

d.) ‘coz it happened to have 100% synth, which means the Taj will be completely viewable in a 360 degrees using Photosynth. The monuments that do not have 100% Photosynth have a few elemental pictures missing, still. So, they won’t be picturized in full.

How is this useful?

Well, imagine this technology being meshed up with the maps application on mobile phones. So, while surfing Google maps (or Nokia Maps, for that matter), while you zoom in to the detailed views, you can actually see a structure from a 3D point of view. You can actually navigate through the structure, roads and streets. Imagine you are in a new city and have no clue about it. Using GPS and Photosynth, you can actually see the street that you are in. Then, instead of you moving forward and navigating the streets, you can use your phone to see what les ahead, in that left-hand turn that you can see 100 meters from here.

And on large screens, the effects would be just mindblowing. Imagine using a 24-inch LCD screen to browse through the streets of France. While occasionally looking at both the sides of the street, to admire the ancient, 17-centuary architectural masterpieces. I have seen Europe in pictures and I know it looks beautiful; such an application would completely make it a WoW experience.

Wonderful. Is this from Microsoft?

One Hundred Percent. There are a lot of interesting projects going on in Microsoft Labs. Photosynth is just one of them. Microsoft joined hands with University of Washington to create the technology. Microsoft had always known to be very pro-developers, and now, they have started collaborating actively with the students and Universities. A lot has been changing at Microsoft, lately, although not everyone acknowledges it.

So how are they gonna monetize it?

Microsoft says they have not yet planned to monetize it. Monetization will be thought of later. It’s a good idea to let users sue it and get Wowed by it. Monetization can happen later. I’m sure of the utility of this innovation. Monetization won’t be a problem, once they create an API for this. This can be a huge add on for the smart phones.

Our Take

We loved this technology. Kudos to Microsoft for developing this. After the wonderful Video Search option innovation in LIVE Search, it’s a great leap ahead, for sure. I’m sure many will like it. And I’m sure this can add a lot of utility to many services. How they monetize it, is something that cannot be said right now. May be, like many other technologies from Microsoft, they will just leave it for user experience. It might be free for the users and they might generate their business from the network carriers or enterprises. But for now here is what I have to say - The WoW Starts Now.

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