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3D Virtual Reconstructions From Microsoft

Posted by Zonk on Tue Aug 01, 2006 09:58 AM
from the all-manner-of-shiny dept.
Microsoft The Internet Technology
Lord Satri writes "New around the corner, Microsoft Live Labs' Photosynth, will 'take a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space.' There's a demonstrational video and a 'smart photos' example page. From the site Very Spatial: 'The word is that Photosynth will be available for free, at least at first, but no word yet on an exact release date.' I must admit, seems like Photosynth may offer interesting features with an clean interface. This tool will directly compete with Stitcher, and to some extent, Google SketchUp. The virtual world reconstruction tools market is getting crowded, and competition is good. Microsoft doesn't yet have software to tie a photo library with Windows Live Local (Google does), but don't be surprised if it comes to life."
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[+] Technology: Photosynth Team Does It Again 144 comments
STFS found an update to the Photosynth stories that we already ran. You might remember the amazing photo tourism demos. Well, this new version kicks things up several notches with paths and color correction to more smoothly transition between photos taken in different lighting conditions. As before, this stuff is worth your time. Check it out.
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  • Dear Aunt... (Score:5, Funny)

    by roman_mir (125474) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:06AM (#15824945) Homepage
    If this software is half as good as the famous: "Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.", then we at least should be able to use it to create Escher like visual paradoxes, but if anyone is hoping to seriously convert a few pictures of themselves into 3d models, they may find themselves in a Dali like nightmare.

  • Google Earth From User Photos? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gasmonso (929871) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:06AM (#15824946) Homepage

    This basically looks like Google Earth based on user photos and not satellite photos. I find it quite interesting, but a little too much of a gimmick right now. Pixel zooming into a picture is NOT the same as diving into the scene and looking around like its a virtual world.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

    • Re:Google Earth From User Photos? (Score:4, Informative)

      by zootm (850416) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:29AM (#15825117)

      This isn't really pixel zooming, it "zooms" by determining which of the pictures of the scene it has is closest to the view selected by the user, and switching to that one, rather than zooming in on a specific image. So if you, for example, select to view the head of a statue from a picture of that statue, it looks for a picture of the head of statue, then views that. It's pretty neat.

      • Re:Google Earth From User Photos? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mrxak (727974) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:44AM (#15825214)
        Man-made objects should be pretty easy for software to put together. We tend to build things in a non-random fashion. I'd be a lot more interested to see how well this software works with natural objects like trees (blowing in the wind, no less) than it works with buildings.

        • I'm not sure that's what it's really designed for, but you're right that it would be interesting. I'm not sure how automatic the system is in creating its scenes (although to be honest I didn't read a lot of the article, I've just played with the online demo thing for a while).

  • Real Estate (Score:4, Interesting)

    by brunes69 (86786) <[slashdot] [at] [keirstead.org]> on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:06AM (#15824948) Homepage
    This software could revolutionize buying real estate remotely. Imagine, an agent goes in with a cheap digicam and takes a bunch of shots of the house they're selling. They load them into this software which creates a 3D, navigable model of the house, which someone can browse via a browser plugin.

    Sure, this has been around for a while with VRML, but it was complicated and costly for an agent to do. From the looks of this software you can use normal photos as a base. Anyone could create 3D tours with this.

    • If you're a real-estate agent, it's not really that big of an investment to buy a Kaidan 360 lens. [photo.net] It only takes a few seconds to take a picture with, and you only have to snap one picture. Their software builds a quicktime VR of the environment. In my opinion, a quicktime VR gives a better presentation of an environment than what was seen in the MS software anyway. The only benefit to the MS stuff is that it will let you zoom in on particular features you photographed more close-up, where I believe that Qu
      • The only benefit to the MS stuff is that it will let you zoom in on particular features you photographed more close-up

        It doesn't just let you zoom in (which, by the way, Quicktime VR can do too); it lets you look at the scene from any arbitrary perspective. It's the difference between just standing still and looking around in Quake and actually running around the level.

        • Yes, I know quicktime lets you zoom in, but that's not what I'm talking about. I said Quicktime only supports one resolution all the way around- you can't have some one object in the image be much higher resolution and support zooming in on that object while the rest of the VR remains blocky. The entire image is one resolution, and you just get to pan around and zoom in and out of that image. The MS stuff lets you have close-up photos of individual features, so you could zoom in to read the fine print on so

  • The world is not static (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What about cars and people that change from picture to picture? It's not possible to match them. Does their reconstruction algorithm try to erase them, or to merge them?

  • Escher (Score:3, Funny)

    by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:07AM (#15824956)
    What happens if you throw some Escher drawings at it?

  • Obligatory Blade Runner (Score:5, Funny)

    by Weaselmancer (533834) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:08AM (#15824962)

    Deckard: Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance, stop. Move in, stop. Pull out, track right, stop. Center in, pull back. Stop. Track 45 right. Stop. Center and stop. Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back. Wait a minute, go right, stop. Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop. Enhance 15 to 23. Give me a hard copy right there.

    • Re:Obligatory Blade Runner (Score:4, Funny)

      by radarsat1 (786772) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:18AM (#15825027) Homepage
      But keep in mind Microsoft's speech recognition woes..

      A more likely transaction might be: "Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance, stop. Stop. STOP. Dear aunt? Move in, stop. Pull out. No, pull OUT. Pull out. Pullllll out. DAMN IT. Dear aunt? Track right. No, RIGHT. Whoa.. okay... left. Pull left. LEFT. STOP. FUCK!"
    • I never quite understood how that photo-magnification/voice-recognition machine that Deckard uses could reveal an object that's behind ANOTHER object in the original (apparently 2-dimensional) photo. Did photos grow a 3rd dimension and cameras the ability to see around objects? Does Deckard have a giant fiber-optic periscope?
      • I never quite understood how that photo-magnification/voice-recognition machine that Deckard uses could reveal an object that's behind ANOTHER object in the original (apparently 2-dimensional) photo.

        I don't know how much processing power it would take, but if I were going to write software like that, it would:

        - Build up a basic 3D model of the room based on what's visible in the photo.
        - "Sketch in" the missing parts using a combination of interpolation and looking at cast shadows.
        - Map the known colours fro

  • I have to say, this would be pretty neat - take all of the images on Google Images for instance and be able to take a high-def virtual tour of places around the world.

    Be sure to check out PlayAnywhere [on10.net] too - another neat tech that's being made over at Microsoft Research.

  • Looks like panarama software on crack. Lots of legal implications I would think - depending on how the photo's are shared or linked - since it is taking photo's that you may or may not have shot and combining them all together - the question might be "who owns the final composite?".

    Looks amazing though - can't wait to see it come out.

        • From the point of view of creating technology, who cares?

          Once it can be demonstrated, then you can worry about the legal issues of combining photos from disparate sources with, presumably, disparate rights.

          If MS can deliver the technological goods, that will be quite an accomplishment. Especially since so little of the cool stuff MS Research does gets to see the light of day.

  • This is doable, if this product is for real and sells at a good price it will be great. The only software that can do this right now is very expensive camera tracking tools, like :Bijou [2d3.com]
  • Upload Natalie Portman.

    Then fly over her 3D body in realtime. Excellent!
  • A formerly despised and hated company actually ends up doing new neat stuff, whilst a new protaganist takes over, formerly loved as an underdog, treats everyone like crap and becomes hated.
  • REAL VIZ has been doing this stuff for years. They even have a few movies under their belt where their software has been used. http://www.realviz.com/ [realviz.com]
    • REAL VIZ has been doing this stuff for years. They even have a few movies under their belt where their software has been used.

      I've never tried REAL VIZ, but from scoping out their web site it actually seems rather different. From the looks of it, REAL VIZ can either create a 2D panorama from several photos, or a 3D model based on a single photo. This new thing from Microsoft will allow you to create a 3D model aggregating the information from multiple photographs.

  • Wikipedia, not MSN Encarta (Score:3, Interesting)

    by danielsanII (925610) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:25AM (#15825081)
    Their website shows wikipedia [live.com], not MSN Encarta :)
  • From what little I can make of everything I read, LiveLabs is more of a think tank that is funded by Microsoft. I don't believe they are even under much if any creative control by MS. I would think of this more like a small startup with an idea and an enormous budget... memories of the dotcom era.

    So because of this affiliation, MS comes out looking innovative and creative when it's merely a small team of appearently very creative developers who have probably never touched any code of any of MS's major inc

  • I didn't take all of my happy pills this morning (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ColdWetDog (752185) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:36AM (#15825159) Homepage
    But this isn't even alpha. It's blogoware - concepts and a video trailer.

    Wake me up when it's over.

  • Right now this is basic research. Some potentially cool applications but nothing yet. Unsurprisingly, it's Microsoft doing the basic research anymore. I remember when other companies funded such things. Apple used to have an entire skunkworks dedicated to basic and advanced research. Sigh. Well, at least we'll be able to see the new and creative appear from the academic computing centers, it'll just run on Vista first.
  • Anybody else catch that bottle of Microsoft Brian Wash in the video? At least somebody's got a sense of humor of there...
    • Wow I butchered that post. Should say: "Anybody else catch that bottle of Microsoft Brain Wash in the video? At least somebody's got a sense of humor over there..."

      (Sorry)

  • Don't use the word "tie" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ancil (622971) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @11:26AM (#15825505)
    Microsoft doesn't yet have software to tie a photo library with Windows Live Local (Google does), but don't be surprised if it comes to life."

    OK, I won't be surprised.

    I also won't be surprised when slashdotters gush and fawn over Google's product, then go ape-shit over Microsoft "tying" a software product to Windows Live Local.

  • Good for Investigations (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seven of five (578993) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @11:39AM (#15825600) Homepage
    I can see where this would be a big help in investigations, journalistic, scientific, criminal, etc. Reconstructing a 3-D scene would help understand where people and things were when something happened.

    Today there are mic's placed in some high crime areas that identify a gunshot and where it happened. Cameras placed at strategic locations would complete the "picture".
  • A very nifty tool, not very well known: http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
  • "What is that tower called? Just photograph it.
    Photosynth could eventually connect you to everything on the Web related to it."

    Replace 'tower' with 'picture of naked girl' and you realise the real possibilities.......

  • The next step - video (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chairboy (88841) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @12:02PM (#15825813) Homepage
    The next logical step (as the algorithms improve, hardware gets faster, and demand grows) will be to do the same with video. See http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/mk_davis_pg f.gif [bigfootencounters.com] to see a cursory example of how motion picture data can be used to build a persistent environment.

    Another poster earlier in the thread speculated that a real estate agent could photo a house to make a virtual tour. Even better, maybe, would be to just carry a high def video camera of some sort through the house, waving it around to get at least a little bit of footage of everything. With that data, an intelligent program could composite a 3D representation with even fewer blackout spots. Combine this with an accelerometer/gyro field that gives a non-software correlation to the video stream, and it's essentially bulletproof.

    In the form demonstrated, this is a fantastic heavy duty software solution, but physical tracking data would both make this job easier and improve the quality.

    I suspect that in the near future we will see the following technologies made ubiquitous in cameras:
    1. GPS
    2. Tilt/Compass
    3. Accelerometer/motion tracking for video.

    Items 1 and 2 would enable any camera to provide very accurate geo-located data. #3 with video gives you tracking where GPS fails plus the super accurate tracking data needed to take this to the next level.

    "But Chairboy, you tool, why would the camera companies go to the expense?"

    The features listed have become incredibly cheap (both in cost and power consumption) over the past few years. Within a couple years, it'll probably be hard to NOT have them in one of the shared chipsets the camera manufacturers use, and at that point, why fight it?
  • (And this is probably off-topic, but what the hell)

    Anyone know of software that can take 2 (or more) digital pics of, say, a person's face from slightly different angles and then try to make a 3d model of it? I assume it exists, I just have no idea what it would be called.

    Tried googling, and am getting a bajillion results for stuff that just isn't related.

    Anyway, it would be really quite interesting to see the tiling software like this coupled with the perspective/parallax type of 3d modelling and ultra hig

  • I wonder how it scales? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FleaPlus (6935) * on Tuesday August 01 2006, @12:25PM (#15826022) Homepage Journal
    I'm rather curious to see how well their approach scales. For example, what if you just dumped all the 1,853 photos of Times Square from Flickr [flickr.com] into their interface? Scaling even more, in the future could one use this to aggregate all the photos in a particular city, or even have a Google Earth-like interface aggregating photos from all over the globe and integrating it with satellite data? There's some interesting computational problems with arise in trying to find correspondence between that many visual features.

    I'm also like to see if they can deal with pictures taken at different times of day. I'm guessing it's still too difficult to actually adapt a day image to a night image, so it'd probably just end up treating photos taken at different times of day as different scenes.
  • Actually it's not particular "microsoft" research, but University of Washington: http://phototour.cs.washington.edu/ [washington.edu]
    Their video is also MUCH better. Much more impressive, they show some very cool features Microsoft did not. Still, both videos only show the User Interface. Not the calculation of the dataset. It is however no secret that Microsoft PhotoSynth is basically this with a different UI. Or maybe completely the same. (Notice that the Microsoft name is both present on the PhotoTour homepage and t
    • Yes, there is this software: http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/autopano-sift / [tu-berlin.de] It is GPL'ed but the problem is that it is using a patented algorithm (SIFT features) so it is not free to use in commercial applications without paying I guess.
    • you are looking for 'Hugin', generally is does a good job.

      --Rant--
      however it does suffer from the fact that it is a font-end for a series of command line apps which have widely disparate design paradigms. One particularly annoying app is written in C# and thus one must down the whole of mono crap in order to use it (if memory serves it is a 28 meg download for a 780K application). Also due to the same issues there is not really consistent handling of filetypes, size, colour depth, compression, and error r

    • Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:4, Informative)

      by et764 (837202) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @10:21AM (#15825051)
      I use Hugin Panorama Tools [sourceforge.net]. I think it works really well, though I don't have a lot of experience with other stitchers. It can do panorama stitching, and also correct for barrel distortion and such.

    • hugin [sourceforge.net] does photo-stitching pretty well, I find, and is open source.

    • I know you asked about an Open source stitcher, but there's also Autostitch [cs.ubc.ca] to have a look at. It's Windows-only, but from what I can tell, their demo version has no time limit, and it does an impressive job with braindead simplicity : select pictures, click go.

    • Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:4, Informative)

      by bitslinger_42 (598584) on Tuesday August 01 2006, @11:31AM (#15825545)

      There was a long discussion of pano tools, both free and commercial, over at dpchallenge.com [dpchallenge.com] a while back. That link is to the first page where the discussion starts, way down at the bottom. From that thread, it would appear that, while a major PITA to install and learn to use, Hugin produces results that are typically at least as good as most of the major commercial tools and are far better than many of them.

    • Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the wisdom of the ages dictate that first you find a need and then deliver a solution?

      It depends on your goal. If your sole goal is to make money, they you are correct. As far as general scientific and technological advancement you are REALLY wrong.
    • Research and Development

      Sometimes you do things, not to fulfill a specific task but to explore a concept or an idea, even. Lots of money is spent this way - not just by venture capitalists or companies looking to make a buck, but by research firms who have an honest interest in progressing the sciences - yes, eventually they will make money but in the short term research like this is important just for the sake of knowlege. Imagine for example the defense application. Send a UAV through a remote hostile l

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