How Does it Work?

In simple terms, Photosynth allows you to take a bunch of photos of the same scene or object and automagically stitch them all together into one big interactive 3D viewing experience that you can share with anyone on the web.

Photosynth is really two remarkable technical achievements in one product: a viewer for downloading and navigating complex visual spaces and a "synther" for creating them in the first place. Together they make something that seems impossible quite possible: reconstructing the 3D world from flat photographs.

Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines images for similarities to each other and uses that information to estimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point each photo was taken from. With this information, we recreate the space and use it as a canvas to display and navigate through the photos.

Providing that experience requires viewing a LOT of data though—much more than you generally get at any one time by surfing someone’s photo album on the web. That’s where our Seadragon™ technology comes in: delivering just the pixels you need, exactly when you need them. It allows you to browse through dozens of 5, 10, or 100(!) megapixel photos effortlessly, without fiddling with a bunch of thumbnails and waiting around for everything to load.

We deliver this immersive viewing experience to users on multiple operating systems by tapping into the power of Silverlight, Microsoft’s rich web application technology.

History

Photosynth was inspired by the breakthrough research on Photo Tourism from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research. This work pioneered the use of photogrammetry to power a cinematic and immersive experience.

After Seadragon joined Microsoft Live Labs, the marriage of the two technologies was proposed. Seadragon technology enabled the fast, smooth delivery of the hundreds of images that Photosynth required. After launching a technology preview, the team went to work on the community solution that is now Photosynth.com.

We’ve enjoyed some notable partnerships, which have resulted in some great synths. Some of the most prominent include National Geographic, NASA, and of course the Obama Inauguration.

Although, we’ve moved into the larger Bing Maps group, we’re still a small team of scientists, engineers, and designers working hard to deliver on Photosynth’s amazing potential.