Microsoft Releases 3rd Generation Of Photosynth, Turns 3D Images Into Video-Like Experiences
Microsoft this morning lifted the veil on the next generation of Photosynth, its 3D image technology, with the release of a technical preview of the new Photosynth.
Context & Ripple Effects
Photosynth has been Microsoft's longest-running bet on turning flat photo collections into navigable 3D space: the technology was wired into Virtual Earth back in 2009 (integrating with Virtual Earth), and earlier this year Microsoft finally shipped a panorama app for Windows Phone 8, extending capture beyond the desktop viewer. The third-generation technical preview continues that arc — moving from stitched panoramas toward video-like fly-throughs reconstructed from ordinary images.
The release landed amid an unusually busy stretch for Microsoft Research's consumer experiments — the Socl social network got iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 apps the same week — and against a backdrop of reporting that the company's CEO search had stalled despite qualified candidates. Pickup was broad for a research preview: Search Blog, PC Magazine, Engadget, The Verge, The Next Web and SlashGear all carried the story on the day, signaling real audience appetite for photo-to-3D tooling even before any productized version ships.
First-order effects
- Developers and enthusiasts get their first hands-on access to the new reconstruction engine via the technical preview, letting them judge whether the video-like output holds up outside Microsoft's demos while the current panorama tools keep running.
Second-order effects
- The Windows Phone 8 app shipped in March 2013 now sits on top of an outdated generation of the technology, pressuring Microsoft to rebuild its mobile capture clients around the new engine — and nudging rival mapping and photo-sharing services whose stitching quality becomes visibly dated by comparison.
Third-order effects
- If image-derived reconstructions keep converging on genuine video quality, the line between captured footage and synthesized imagery thins, making provenance and authenticity tooling for synthetic media a structural requirement rather than a research curiosity.
The trend: Consumer photography is shifting from static stitched panoramas toward fully synthesized 3D scenes, with platform owners like Microsoft rebuilding capture and viewing software around each generation of reconstruction engines.