http://walterra.twoday.net/ Mind your own business. walterra walterra 2006-08-02T02:14:11Z en hourly 1 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z http://static.twoday.net/icon.gif http://walterra.twoday.net/ http://walterra.twoday.net/stories/2470038/ Microsoft's PhotoSynth <a href="http://labs.live.com/photosynth/">press kit</a> is on and <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/01/microsoft-to-present-fly-through-photo-app-photosynth/">impresses</a>.<br /> <br /> I have some comments concerning the "2 weeks to process" mentioned on <a href="http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/2006073102-microsoft-vapourware">drinsama.de </a>. I think the author misunderstood something.<br /> I don't think PhotoSynth is meant to be a stand-alone application like RealViz Stitcher or other stitching software. Think more of it like a 3D-Flickr, a web based service where you upload your photos. The whole work calculating the picture's position is done automatically on the server(s) (like in a certain <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/technology/14search.html?ex=1307937600&en=d96a72b3c5f91c47&ei=5090">Oregon Data Center</a>). As always, there's a high possibility that M$ screws it.<br /> <br /> It seems PhotoSynth uses different techniques which you could summarize as Optical Flow. For a long time now RealViz' for example used this technology in specialized software packages mainly aimed at the Visual FX market. Recently those technologies emerged in postproduction workhorses like Apple's Shake.<br /> <br /> You can find more info on optical flow at fxguide's article <a href="http://www.fxguide.com/article333.html">Art of Optical Flow</a>. walterra <a href="http://walterra.twoday.net/topics/VisualFX">VisualFX</a> Copyright © 2006 walterra 2006-08-01T23:14:00Z Search this site: q http://walterra.twoday.net/search