A 3D touch by Microsoft …..

Microsoft, in collaboration with University of Washington, has lifted the covers off a new image editing software that can create a 3D replica of what a digital image shows.

Based on the fruits of labour of Microsoft researcher Richard Szeliski, University of Washington’s associate professor Steve Seitz and University of Washington’s third year grad student Noah Snavely, this new software, with the help of different angled photographs of a scene, can create a virtual 3D replica which the user can view from different angles. The software works by picking distinctive features & then pinpointing those features in a 3D landscape. But the technology requires atleast two photographs snapped from different angles to create this 3D replica, though the saying of “the more the merrier” applies here as well, meaning that the more photographs are provided to the software, the better replica it can create.

But I’m still not sure if there will be many takers for this technology. Clearly as some indicate, the main takers for this technology will be the tourism & the real-estate industries, however what I don’t understand is why they would like to create a virtual 3D replica of some place when they can film that same place. The only reason that I think of is that 3D replicas made by this software are supposed to be explorable, like a virtual walk-through which will be just too troublesome to film but easy to do with lots of different angled photos of the place & then feeding those photos to this software!!

You can read up more about this software Photosynth website & also watch the video there demonstrating the technology.