3D Virtual Reconstructions From Microsoft 134
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."
Dear Aunt... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dear Aunt... (Score:1)
Re:Dear Aunt... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dear Aunt... (Score:1)
Once Vista is ready, a typical low-end 64-core system will do the job in a blink
Not the first solution of this kind... (Score:1)
http://www.epoch-net.org/index.php?option=com_cont ent&task=view [epoch-net.org]
Google Earth From User Photos? (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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)
Re:Google Earth From User Photos? (Score:2)
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).
Re:Google Earth From User Photos? (Score:2)
Re:Google Earth From User Photos? (Score:2)
I'm sure there's an interactive demo (of at least one of the features, from reading some of the blurb it looks like it might just be part of it) kicking around somewhere. It's a neat little program in any case, but I'm really not sure if it's even designed to handle non man-made things with any real degree of accuracy.
Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:2)
--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)
Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:2)
hugin [sourceforge.net] does photo-stitching pretty well, I find, and is open source.
Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Open source sticher? Nasa? (Score:2)
Real Estate (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Real Estate (Score:1)
Re:Real Estate (Score:1)
Not quite. This software takes two dimentional images, basically mapping them to walls. While this works out for a panorama type deal that gives you a 3D perspective rather than the warped perspective usually you usually get with panoramic picutures.
However it is not particularily 3D and wouldn't give you much in the way of a navigatable model of a house. It would work for taking shots and allowing the user to view the everything without the aforementioned warping. But actually moving arround, no, it wouldn
Re:Real Estate (Score:1)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/
Mix the two technologies and you'll reach your goal.
Layne
Re:Real Estate (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Real Estate (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Real Estate (Score:2)
Re:Real Estate (Score:2)
Not from their demo, per se, but from their website: "If you've ever played a 3D game you already know how to use Photosynth."
The world is not static (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The world is not static (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The world is not static (Score:1)
Escher (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just wait till the trolls get ahold of this (Score:1)
That is a truly disturbing mental image for this early in the day - or for any time of day in fact.
Obligatory Blade Runner (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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!"
Re:Obligatory Blade Runner (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory Blade Runner (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Not as 3D, but be sure to check out (Score:2)
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.
What are the legal implications? (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks amazing though - can't wait to see it come out.
Re:What are the legal implications? Pfft! (Score:1)
"Oh cool. Imagine the fun the lawyers will have with this"
Theres been plenty of cases regarding who owns images when a person or object is out in public. Enough already,
Re:What are the legal implications? Pfft! (Score:1)
So the question is
Re:What are the legal implications? (Score:1)
So I'm just curious since it allows so many images to be used together seemlessly and in 3d - when you get a final composite - who actually has ownership of the artistic content. It could be a dozen pictures from a dozen people that migh
Re:What are the legal implications? (Score:2)
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.
Re:What are the legal implications? (Score:1)
very cool... (Score:2)
Re:very cool... (Score:2)
Cool use of technology (Score:5, Funny)
Then fly over her 3D body in realtime. Excellent!
Re:Cool use of technology (Score:2)
Until this software can do all that, I fear it is useless.
Re:Cool use of technology (Score:2)
Re:Cool use of technology (Score:2)
Maybe Microsoft will become like IBM (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe Microsoft will become like IBM (Score:1)
Another gimmick from MS (Score:1)
Re:Another gimmick from MS (Score:2)
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.
Re:Another gimmick from MS (Score:1)
Three words (Score:2)
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
Re:Another gimmick from MS (Score:1, Interesting)
The big difference is that Google started adding a limitted level of release support to their betas,
BBC has a speculated and stupid use. (Score:1, Troll)
Dr Szeliski said:
Re:Another gimmick from MS (Score:2)
Did i really miss something of significance here or is this YASNT (Yet Another Social Networking Toy)?
This company has been doing this for years (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This company has been doing this for years (Score:2)
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.
Re:This company has been doing this for years (Score:1)
Re:This company has been doing this for years (Score:2)
Wikipedia, not MSN Encarta (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wikipedia, not MSN Encarta (Score:2)
Very interesting (Score:1)
Re:Very interesting (Score:1)
So imagine a whole bunch of webcams around St. Peters taking snaps say every 30 secs and stiching this all together. You could see birds flying, people moving all in a 3D world. Does sound computationally intensive but w
Release date? (Score:1, Funny)
Maybe it's being bundled with Vista. *snigger*
Live labs != Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
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
MS past has biased me (Score:1)
you can wait forever for this thing .... (Score:1)
I didn't take all of my happy pills this morning (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me up when it's over.
Re:I didn't take all of my happy pills this mornin (Score:1)
Basic Research (Score:2)
Microsoft Brain Wash? (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft Brain Wash? (Score:2)
(Sorry)
Re:Microsoft Brain Wash? (Score:2)
Any relation to Microsoft Bob?
Re:Microsoft Brain Wash? (Score:1)
For Bob's sake, don't let slip that any MS software but not be 100% evil, useless and bloated, for then you will be cast into the pit of Digg.
What happened to QuickTime VR Authoring Studio? (Score:1)
Don't use the word "tie" (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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".
Checkout hugin (Score:2)
Sounds good (Score:2)
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.......
Stalker's dream (Score:2)
The next step - video (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Anyone know... (Score:2)
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 got that wrong (Score:1)
Flickr (Score:1)
I wonder how it scales? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I wonder how it scales? (Score:1)
The result will however be good.
Don't even think of doing it with just some 20 pictures. You need a full coverage! Best hire some professionals for that, and maybe a cluster to compute it a bit faster than in 10 days.
(The Notre Dame example they had took two weeks on a 3.4 GHz computer. That was some 2500 images, of which only 500 ended up in the result).
No, nothing for your aunt^Wmommy and her holiday photos.
Re:I wonder how it scales? (Score:1)
Even better, integrate time stamps and see the long-term effects of time (e.g. erosion, rust) on an object from any angle.
Immense computations needed (Score:2, Informative)
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
Art history & reconstruction (Score:2)
why not video? (Score:1)
where would these cameras be? why would they have to be mechanical, why not biological cameras? insects, or "bugs", that have been genetically designed to transmit their image data over "wifi". and who would have control of the data? net neutrality?
Wikipedia? (Score:2)
Amazing...