Photosynth - Almost 3D worlds from pictures

This is, without doubt, one of the coolest software created by Microsoft since, maybe, Windows (You might not agree with me on that last part). The new web based service allows the user to create a near perfect 3D world using normal static pictures. This is actually something I've seen before in certain sites (St. Josephs College Colombo 10 site, now defunct, had a 3D panoramic view of their ground). But the Microsoft version is far better, as you might suspect from the below picture of a 3D world of Taj Mahal, created completely using pictures.


You can use pictures taken from any source (even camera phones), but better quality pictures result in better 'synths' (as these 3D worlds are called by Microsoft) for obvious reasons. You can see something called 'point clouds', which are aggregations of points which marks spots the software thinks are available in multiple photos (See pictures at the bottom). The result is a 3D world made up of 'clouds of points', which demonstrates the complexity of the algorithms used.
Creating your own synths is pretty easy too.You'll need a Windows Live account, and will have to download a small software (about 10Mb). Then, you have to create a separate Photosynth account, which gives you about 20Gb of space to host the photos of the synth, and off you go. One thing to remember is that any synths you create are available for everyone to view, so you might want to wait until the service matures enough to allow better personalization.












You can check it out at http://photosynth.net