Although the utility of having Photosynths integrated with Live maps is questionable at the moment when compared with Street View, it’s only a matter of time before the map is a little more saturated with user-generated content. Imagine if a rooftop restaurant put out an official, well-done synth of the view from their deck — that’s really great exposure if it pops up when you type in “downtown seattle restaurant patio” or something like that when you’re looking for a scenic outdoor bite in the summer.

Microsoft should be sending interns to offices and bars all over town with cameras, building this service up. I feel Microsoft has a long record of making cool things available but not pushing them or giving them the exposure they need. Photosynth and the underlying tech is fun and cool, but unless people have it staring them in the face, they’re not going to care one way or the other. They also need to integrate it more with the Live maps experience; at the moment it pops up to the Photosynth site, why can’t it be a little virtual window?

First off, Photosynth only works on Windows machines. That includes creating them and merely viewing them. I made this one using Boot Camp on my MacBook.

That out of that way, this is a quick little Photosynth of Samsung’s booth at IFA 2008. Theirs was probably the most visually impressive at the show. More stuff on the way, as I just found out that the video I took with my cellphone is actually watchable. Amazing, this technology.

The Photosnth is HERE!

I got to cruise over to Smith Tower yesterday to talk with Microsoft Live Labs about Photosynth, and as of this writing the site should be live and all the things we talked about will be available for you to play with. It’s best to see it in motion, so either grab that camera or watch the video above for a taste of the Synthy goodness. Sorry the sound is so booty.

The video is a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff but really there isn’t too much there you can’t see by just heading over to Photosynth.net and testing out a few synths. May I recommend my own? Or, of course, you could look at one of the many gorgeous panoramas made up by people who work at some magazine called “National Geographic” — whatever that is. Read on for a basic explanation of what’s going on when it synths stuff.
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Wow, this is really, really goddamn cool. I love how the “skeleton” created by all the photographs is visible, a ghostly meta-world based entirely on aggregate data and an insane amount of processing power. You can switch between day and night, rotate smoothly, zoom, it’s color-corrected, it looks fantastic. I’ll let the guys in the video explain just what is going on, but man do I want this on my rig.

Deep respect to Microsoft Research and UW for putting this together. Check out the higher-res version at their site. [via Reddit and I started something]