Photogrammetry

When I was at college studying Photographic Science one of the more interesting subjects in Sid Ray's applied photography module was photogrametry - the measurement of objects using photographic images (aside, doesn't Sid have just about the best name for someone that writes books about things like this?).

Well, things have come a long way since my days in the labs at Riding House Street... Photosynth is a technology that takes a large collection of photographs of a particular place and reconstructs a three-dimensional space from which you can explore the images. Microsoft labs have just released a technology preview that includes four sample collections: the Piazza San Marco in Venice; Grassi Lakes in the Canadian Rockies; Piazza San Pietro in Rome; and the studio of artist Gary Faigin in Seattle. It's a great, if sometimes befuddling, way to explore a space. I can't wait to see what my own collection can look like.

Scoble says it was the killer app of the Web 2.0 Summit.

Here's a snap of photosynth in action, you can try out the preview for yourself on labs.live.com (system requirements).

photosynth Hosted on Zooomr

 

I see stuff like this and think what more is to come in this rich world of imaging ;-)

Tags: photosynth | photogrammetry | photography