StrongMocha

Imagine yourself beneath the Eiffel Tower or in the heart of Times Square. Now imagine being able to see that exact scene in an amazing new way. With Photosynth, you can look up or down, pan from left to right, zoom in, or pull back to reveal the full sense of where you were. Photosynth provides incredibly realistic close-up detail of a place as seen in the collaboration with National Geographic. Exclusive synths of some of the world’s most renowned locations, such as Machu Picchu and the Parthenon, were created using photographs taken by National Geographic.

From the Photosynth takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs the scene or object in a 3-D environment. Photosynth is a potent mixture of two independent breakthroughs: the ability to reconstruct the scene or object from a bunch of flat photographs, and the technology to bring that experience to virtually anyone over the Internet.

Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines images for similarities to each other and uses that information to estimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point the photos were taken from. With this information, we recreate the space and use it as a canvas to display and navigate through the photos.

Providing that experience requires viewing a LOT of data though—much more than you generally get at any one time by surfing someone’s photo album on the web. That’s where our Seadragon™ technology comes in: delivering just the pixels you need, exactly when you need them. It allows you to browse through dozens of 5, 10, or 100(!) megapixel photos effortlessly, without fiddling with a bunch of thumbnails and waiting around for everything to load.

Photosynth is a radically new way to use your photography. To help you get the best results we’ve prepared the The Photosynth Photography Guide (1Mbyte pdf)

Using Photosynth

Getting started with Photosynth is easy:

• To begin, just take a few dozen digital photos — 20 to 300 photos are required, depending on the size of the place or object — with overlap between each shot, from a number of locations and angles.
• Next, download a small, free software application to your computer from http://photosynth.com. This software works in concert with the Photosynth Web site, which is also a free service.
• Build your synth in just two easy steps: First, from the Photosynth Web site, click on Create and select the pictures you want to use. Then, give your creation a name and click on Synth, and Photosynth automatically creates and uploads your synth. In about the same amount of time it would take to upload the pictures to a photo-sharing site, you can enjoy your pictures in dramatic and detailed 3-D.
• The finished synth can be accessed from any Windows XP- or Windows Vista-powered computer with a broadband connection. If you want to comment on other people’s synths or create your own, you’ll also need a free Windows Live ID.
• Once created, synths can also be embedded on Web sites, blogs and social networking sites or virtually anywhere HTML can be edited.

Did you ever see a photo or image and though “mm that looks odd, does she really have three arms?”. It might be Photoshoped to death. If you interested in such images you should take a look at photoshopdisasters photoshopdisasters list them all. All the Images that got a little to much Photoshop work on them, all the Images that have been done in a hurry, all the Images that make you wonder how they have done it. Models with three arms, Celebrities with body’s that look like someone glued their head onto someone else body, items that seem to fly, reflections in mirrors that show something else and  many examples can be found on photoshopdisasters.

Click on the picture above to see a sneak preview of the new PhotoMocha web site which is currently being redesigned and will become available to the public in April 2008. On PhotoMocha you can see all the different photographs we did shoot or will produce in the future.

PhotoMocha’s Photo pool includes:

• Country Photography
  • India
  • Sri Lanka
  • France
  • Italy
  • Germany
  • Namibia
  • South Africa
  • Morocco
• Food Photography
• Landscape Photography
• People Photography

Click this text to see the PhotoMocha sneak preview

Read the rest of this entry »

TiltViewer from Airtight is a free, customizable 3D Flash image viewing application. There is also a pro version TiltViewer-Pro which you can purchase to be able to use more features. TiltViewer does support either Flickr Galleries or XML Galleries.

PhotoMocha has a great TiltViewer Example:

• India 2007 Photos  (TiltViewer Pro @ PhotoMocha)

What is new in TiltViewer Version 1.3?

• Added free downloadable version
• Added next/back paging navigation option
• Support disabling of flip button globally or per image
• Support removing link button per image
• Added internationalization support for all text
• Fixed key navigation to empty images
• Drop out frames if image count < page size or if image URL doesn’t exist
• Fixed fullscreen menu option after escaping fullscreen mode
• Updated Away3D engine version for increased performance
• Fixed ‘Where is the debugger…’ prompt for some player versions
• Allow loading into another Flash movie (PRO)
• Added transparent background option (PRO)
• Added link ‘_target’ support (PRO)
• Added frame width option (PRO)
• Added flip button and navigation button color options (PRO)
• Removed preloader text (PRO)
• Added option to disable ‘Go Fullscreen’ menu item (PRO)
• Removed default flickr search (PRO)

TiltViewer is based on PaperVision3D.

The Q&A about the shared images from the Library of Congress Photos on Flickr Frequently Asked Questions which is available as well.

Q: Why is the Library placing pictures on Flickr?
A: We have several goals:

• To share photographs from the Library’s collections with people who enjoy images but might not visit the Library’s own Web site.
• To gain a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the Library and users of the collections.
• To gain experience participating in Web communities that are interested in the kinds of materials in the Library’s collections.

…
Q: Can I reuse the photos the Library has made available on Flickr? What are the rights and permissions on these? Can I reproduce these pictures?
A: Although the Library of Congress does not grant or deny permission to use photos, the Library knows of no copyright restrictions on the publication, distribution, or re-use of these photos. Privacy rights may apply. For further information see the rights, see the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection color photographs rights information and the George Grantham Bain Collection rights information.

I have been installing Tiltviewer Pro today on PhotoMocha while we prepare the images from India you can take a look at the new way we plan to present Images on PhotoMocha.

http://www.photomocha.com/2008/01/05/returned-from-india/

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