FJR in 3-D

[Jackson]

Today Microsoft launched their public version of a new service called Photosynth. The program takes still images and stitches them together into a simulated 3-D environment. HERE is an article that explains it in a lot more detail.

I tried it today. The first problem to overcome was the fact that overwhelming traffic to the Photosynth site crashed it. But they got it going late today. While it was down, I rode my FJR to Wind Cave National Park and took 68 photos of it. That's right, 68.

When the site was up and running again I logged on and created my "synth". It took about 15-20 minutes using my DSL connection to upload the photos, each about 500 K, and stitch or synth them together. I set the camera to a relatively low resolution, thinking it would be crazy to try to upload and compile 70 photos if each was 8 MB.

You can go to the site and search for "fjr1300" and you'll see the synth. Or this should be a direct link to it. To view it you'll have to download a viewer file, I think it's 6 or 7 MB.

It's a little buggy still, and Firefox did not play the synths consistently, but Internet Explorer did.

The easiest way to view the synth it is to click on the play button in the upper-right corner, and it will automatically pan and zoom, eventually, I think, through all of the photos. You can also click on the arrows to zoom in, out, and pan up, down, back, left, right.

It's free by the way. The program itself is on the Microsoft site, and that's where the photos and synths are stored. They are all available for anyone to view. All you install on your computer is the viewer.

 

[TriggerT]

Kind of neat, but to be honest, I don't know if I think it is much better than if I looked at your 68 photos in a slide show format. I guess it is cool that you can zoom in and out, and that it puts then in sequence so you can rotate things.

I would give it a "B"

 

[MEM]

KOOL!

 

[Kevin Daly]

Kind of neat, but to be honest, I don't know if I think it is much better than if I looked at your 68 photos in a slide show format. I guess it is cool that you can zoom in and out, and that it puts then in sequence so you can rotate things.
I would give it a "B"

gunny B... But nice try

 

[Jackson]

If you simply want to take photos of a bike or a landscape, this program is probably not the best tool. I did it as an experiment and a demonstration to see how it worked. It was fun and I learned some things about how useful the program could be. I thought perhaps someone on here might find it interesting.

People with more imagination than myself could probably think of a multitude of uses. There are no doubt some applications that would work very nicely. For example, you could take a series of photos of how to tear down a bike and do a throttle body sync. Or how to pick up your bike by yourself if it falls over. Assuming you could be sure the pics ended up in the right order.

It could also be useful if you wanted to sell your home... providing a tour inside and out. Or sell your bike.

 

[devanator]

Awesome Jackson

Pretty cool option for your pic displays. I like the directional feel like your standing there looking in the very direction the next pic was take at. We'll talk more about it when I get out there.

devanator