Possibly the coolest program I have ever seen!

Mint_Sauce · 2 Dec 2007 at 02:07

I think this is semi implemented in to the live maps. Check out your house, for example click here.

http://maps.live.com/

install the 3d viewer then click aerial and then birds eye view and you can rotate around areas. I can see my house from multiple angles which is cool! I expect this is Microsofts attempt to knock Google Earth about a bit, can't wait for when they connect it up to FlickR!

EDIT: Just found it in their live labs area, it is photosynth they're using on the live maps, \o/

http://labs.live.com/

helpimcrap · 2 Dec 2007 at 07:13

i like it when he says that he never thought he would be working for microsoft and get a reception like that,

also his t-shirt is :cool:

SexyGreyFox · 2 Dec 2007 at 09:58

Mint_Sauce said:
install the 3d viewer then click aerial and then birds eye view and you can rotate around areas.

I've been using that for ages but didn't know you could rotate.

This just shows how powerful Live Search Maps are.
I thought the Birds Eye view maps were taken from one angle and turning it would just be turning on that one angle.
Not so - here is my house with the red dot and they are 4 different photos.
Look at the bottom right one and I've marked my daughters car which isn't in any of the others.
Very powerful.

Tobes · 2 Dec 2007 at 12:22

Just me that can see your daughters car in the other 3 images? Well I can see it in 2 but the tree is blocking the other one.

SexyGreyFox · 2 Dec 2007 at 12:46

Tobes said:
Just me that can see your daughters car in the other 3 images? Well I can see it in 2 but the tree is blocking the other one.

But the point is they are 4 completely different pictures.
I've just circled around OCUK and they are definitely 4 different pictures.

fini · 2 Dec 2007 at 12:55

I wish the demos on the site were as good as the one they show off in the video though

Mint_Sauce · 2 Dec 2007 at 23:04

Just a matter of time before they strike a deal with some of the big photo holding people like Flickr etc and then hopefully we will suddenly be able to explore a lot of places.

Mint_Sauce · 3 Dec 2007 at 00:16

valve90210 said:
I guess that is one application for it, but is it really worth all the work they've clearly put in, just for that kind of thing? I don't think so.

Valve

Imagine in 10 years time. You're in town looking to get to an address or shop. You look at your new funky phone with very accurate GPS built in and tap in Top Shop (cos that's where you like to shop in 10 years time) and it immediately plots the route and shows it to you.

Then from the exact spot you're standing in, it flies ahead using all the photos available to it, flying you down the street like you're there showing you the route you're about to take.

That's just one application I can think of from the top of my head, there will be many I'm sure!

something_totally_different · 3 Dec 2007 at 00:31

thats incredible, when do you think tech like this will be available ?

Amp34 · 3 Dec 2007 at 01:05

Messiah Khan said:
I see the technology as being very usefull for a vast amount of people. do you ever use Google maps? I use it all the time to plan photoshoots and to plan places to go to. Now if this program was tied into something like google maps (Or more likely the maps.live or whatever its called) then you could zoom right in and see pictures of anywhere someone has pointed a camera at. Its an extremely logical way of tying together millions of images that are spread over the internet with currently no links between them. If things like this took of, it could end up with the entire world being mapped in images in some way or other.

Flickr have Google map with peoples photos added to it, it's a bit bare at the moment but it looks like it could be an excellent resource.

I'm going to have to download that demo tomorrow and have a play with it.