Photosynth Team Does It Again 144
STFS found an update to the
Photosynth stories that we already ran. You might remember the amazing photo tourism demos. Well, this new version kicks things up several notches with paths and color correction to more smoothly transition between photos taken in different lighting conditions. As before, this stuff is worth your time. Check it out.
color (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:color (Score:5, Interesting)
The color matching section was quite impressive given the wide variety of lighting and color temp in the starting photos; if they wrote their own software to do that, it sure counts as R/D.
AFAIK; adobe created the technology first in response to the needs of automation in the pornography industry. It seriously helped alot of "studios" color match the whole set just by having a wizard scan the pics and correct them all.
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Re:color (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why are porno studios particularly interested in the feature?
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Why are porno studios particularly interested in the feature?
It's an extremely efficient (read: cheap) way of making a rather amateur shoot look like it was done by a professional.
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I guess someone doing colour matching on a porno movie might get a bit distracted. Computers don't have that problem...
No sense to limit how many photos you take... (Score:5, Insightful)
And THIS is why I tend to take huge numbers of photos and never delete any... Technology like this will account for easy geotagging, date I already have in the EXIF data, whereas people can be tagged with face recognition soon enough.
That done, I'll be able to navigate my tens of thousands of photos by asking for things like photos taken of the kids while outside at the cottage when they were 3 years old.
Also, remember to backup! :)
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Why not just use a video camera?
Re:No sense to limit how many photos you take... (Score:5, Informative)
So, those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Re: Exposure time (Score:4, Informative)
NTSC is worse than you described; you have two 1/60th second exposures interlaced together. Utterly worthless for still frames.
Once progressive HD video cameras become cheap, then video will suck slightly less for the average family archive.
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Video original better? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Video original better? (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like taking a video would be easier.
Depending on what you are trying to do... My original point was that technology like this will make it possible to navigate the swamps of data we're accumulating.
I like having a lot of family photos, but traditional albums won't do when we have literally thousands of them. Stuff like this can make it possible to easily call up photos based on suitable criteria. Like I said we need other parts to, like face recognition, but summing it all up we'll eventually have a feasible way to navigate a huge amount of photographic data.
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Well the tech demo is using photos taken by arbitrary people. While it could be used to similar effect on your own photo collection (if you take enough photos from enough positions), the real power would seem to be when it's used on a large collection of user-submitted photos, or if its fed the contents of Flickr, etc.
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The Windows program TopoFusion (www.topofusion.com) will merge photos with GPS logs, and place them on a map. As you said, make sure the camera is synced to GPS time.
I've used TopoFusion for a few years and have been pretty happy with it (primarily used for cycling logs and making rough maps of trails).
4D support? (Score:3, Insightful)
That done, I'll be able to navigate my tens of thousands of photos by asking for things like photos taken of the kids while outside at the cottage when they were 3 years old.
That raises an interesting concept. Could they do a 4D orbit? For example identify pictures of your kids at different ages and then you could watch them grow up in front of your eyes. Or watch how a city street changes over a decade? That would be really interesting...shame it will probably only every be available for Windows.
Generalized, or just well-known, static objects? (Score:5, Interesting)
Very cool stuff! Does anyone know (are any of the project team members here?) how much foreknowledge of the object being orbited that is required?
For example, is a 3D wireframe model necessary?
Is a filtering of the photos necessary to ensure that they are all of the same subject?
What level of pre-processing is required on the photos, either automated, or manual?
How well does the system fare when the object being photographed isn't absolutely static? A drawbridge, for example, changes shape. Or Niagara Falls. Or a flag. Or a single person.
Anyone know?
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Re:Generalized, or just well-known, static objects (Score:5, Funny)
goatse
Awwwww Christ ... now you've put zooming and panning into my head at the same time as goatse.
Thanks.
Re:Generalized, or just well-known, static objects (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bit dense and involves some cross references, but here's a part which may answer some of your questions. For more detail you oculd always read the paper yourself.
Re:Generalized, or just well-known, static objects (Score:5, Interesting)
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That makes me wonder if this software would be capable of identifying people as the age sortof. If it has enough data it could find a progressive path from one age to another, and you could find pics of yourself all over the place.
Totally cool idea!
fascinating (Score:2, Informative)
Science fiction and VR have primed me to believe someday we would all be walking around some imaginary digital world (oh wait, WoW anyone?), but this is "virtualization" of the real world. Like Google street view on crack. I am simultaneously in awe of the technological achievement and embarrassed that my life in computers hasn't yet created anything so cool.
I, for one, welcome our new PhotoSynth overlords.
Can't wait..... (Score:1)
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You will probably not find any nuns with woodies in Playboy, though they did feature Caroline Cossey. Either your source material's suspect, or you've got the nuns and priests mixed up.
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Read The Light of Other Days [wikipedia.org] by Arthur C Clarke.
Security (Score:5, Interesting)
I was on an ocean cruise recently, and a little girl was lost... Ship's Security were looking for her.
I later heard she had been found, and as I walked back to my cabin I thought of this software.
Every corridor of the ship has cameras.
The parent could recall the last time she was with the child. An operator could then fly through a 3d map of the ship, from that point in time, with recorded video overlaid, following the girl in fast-forward until the current time was reached.
The flying would be like spectators do in first-person-shooter type computer games.
An observer could even be automatically tethered to the missing person.
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The husband could recall the last time he was with his wife. An operator could then fly through a 3d map of the ship, from that point in time, with recorded video overlaid, following the woman in fast-forward until her new amore was reached.
Ultimate stalker/invasive state tool!
Convoluted (Score:5, Funny)
Erm, isn't that a bit of a long winded complicated way of doing things ? I mean sure, Computer could do that for you but why not just ask instead ?
"Computer, where is " and that would be that. I mean typically she'd be stowed away in the engine room re-configuring the sensor array for some nefarious purpose but that's just kids nowadays I guess.
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Oh, the keyboard.
How quaint.
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Re:Security-indeed (Score:2)
imagine the salivations of the UK security forces.
there is a book, 'lacey and his friends' which contains a few short stories about a society with such abilities...
not pleasant.
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Or you could just tether the kid to the parent with a kiddy leash.
I'm confused by all this (Score:2, Interesting)
I've seen some of these articles about Photosynth, and there seems to be a lot of hype. But... I don't get it.
I see that Photosynth can glue a series of images together so that you can zoom into and move around a scene and get an epileptic-seizure of correlated viewpoints. This group seems to have made a virtual walk-through using this. But I am unclear:
1) What is the point
2) What is the breakthrough
As for #1, Photosynth is ugly. I would much rather have a few good quality same-lighting photos to look a
Re:I'm confused by all this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused by all this (Score:5, Informative)
It needs neither input of coordinates or input of a rough 3d layout. It generates its own 3d model by analyzing the photographs programatically, you do not even need to tell the program they were taking in the same area. The photographs are then automatically applied to the generated 3d model and finally it lets you move freely in the generated 3d world selecting the best photo matching your current viewpoint while applying perspective remapping, color correction and lens correction.
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okay, then I am truly amazed. I guess it just seems so far-fetched that I didn't think it was really doing that.
Even a human brain can't do that. We can't look at an object and determine it's 3D spatial details without additional information. For one thing, we use stereo vision. Then we use our knowledge of scale (cars are about that big, and people are about that big) and light (sun is over there, light bulb is over there). But a computer doesn't know those things.
I figured this might be possible if i
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If it's the same project I think it is, this can do it all using image recognition - correlating photos that appear to be of the same location, and then stitching them together.
It takes a crap load of processor time to do it, but it's largely a hands off process.
Re:I'm confused by all this (Score:5, Informative)
From what I took away from the original demo, they were doing everything algorithmically. The original demo showed a wireframe of the Notre Dame generated completely from amateur pictures, then overlaid with those same pictures to give it texture. So yes, it is quite impressive. I'd be surprised if Google wasn't doing anything similar for Google Maps though.
Re:I'm confused by all this (Score:5, Informative)
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As for the bad part, it takes days and a powerful computer for anything beyond the very basic set of pictures.
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Can someone explain this to me and why I should be interested?
If it works as I believe it works (i.e. the stitching is automagic), then tagging two photos with GPS coordinates should be sufficient to tag all of the photos with fairly accurate (two so you have orientation, or just one with direction as well as location).
Depending on what you want to do with this, you may or may not be excited. I've got a lot of photos that simply do not capture the scale of some of the things I've seen. Not that the photos are bad, just that the medium they're expressed through (i.e.
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Nice view (Score:1)
Nice view indeed!
Page Error (Score:1, Redundant)
The page says: "Error establishing a database connection"
I'm not too impressed if that's what Photosynth can do. ;-)
Video (Score:5, Informative)
Obligatory link to the youtube video [youtube.com] (not a rickroll, I promise!)
Thanks, Network Mirror!
is it even real? (Score:1)
Most likely this barley interactive photosynth demo will be used to secure patents on '3D Virtual Reconstruction', and the final product will ship with no such features, instead being marketed as an alterna
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Blaise Aguera y Arcas on Photosynth [ted.com]
the book thing, i don't think can easily be faked by flash, nor the gigapixel resolution image nor the really neat zooming and zooming and zooming into stuff.
really what photosynth, and by extension seadragon which is what photosynth is built on, promises us is a way to semantically link all those photo's on the web together, to build up those real places into virtual places with little or nor human intervention.
this should enrich the web in a way we are only just begi
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Microsoft (Score:2)
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They've made an effort to make it run on versions of Firefox up to 3.0 (PS was out before FF3.0, so don't think it of it as a "they did it just to say they did it" thing).
I think it's just more of a they haven't got to it yet as opposed to sheer malice. Although they'll probably aim for FF3.0 compatibility before Linux.
Although, I'll admit... there's a reasonable chance there won't be a Linux version until this thing is a lot more mature (i.e. your own collections can be formed... but that's when it'll be i
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An open source photosynth? (Score:5, Interesting)
There was some discussion recently about the possibility of building an open source photosynth - and creating an 'open voxel space' map of the planet.
Anyone know if there's been any progress on this?
http://lists.burri.to/pipermail/geowanking/2008-June/005373.html [burri.to]
Boom! (Score:2)
Crashed Firefox (3).
Twice.
Nice (Score:2)
Everytime when I hear about photosynth, I just remember this http://www.sandcodex.com/ [sandcodex.com]
But it is nice that Microsoft is understanding the power of this technology and develop it more. But it is not nice that technology actually went to Microsoft so it is patented..
Better technology (Score:2)
What I found more intresting technology than Photosynth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556FvXHLtAo [youtube.com]
old tech? (Score:2)
Honestly, this reminds me of DTED and orthorectification techniques used in the satellite imaging world. Just now applied to tagged photos at the consumer level.
When building a virtual Earth using satellite imaging [fas.org] you basically use the same techniques.
Great idea for the 'consumer', but nothing revolutionary, just exploiting the same tech that's been around for 10ys.
But... (Score:2, Funny)
Could it be used to piece together a massively high resolution, totally nude, 3d model of a famous celebrity from the millions of event photo's and nip slips? ;)
Keep the Faith (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok folks, don't worry!
Just keep chanting the mantra that Microsoft never innovates anything and everything will be ok.
I'm sure there will be a linux port of this soon and then we can all go back to complaining about how Microsoft copies everything from Apple.
Firefox? (Score:2)
Wasn't too friendly to my browser.
Even trying setting a downloading it & installing; the content wouldn't activate.
Re:Huh (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems a bit simplistic to me, I'd have thought that they'd turn the photos into a virtual world, using the colour corrected photos to create wireframes and bumpmaps and then being able to apply whatever lighting and other effects to the world. That allows you much more freedom to use other methods (e.g. LIDAR) to populate the database.
Creating 3d models also allows you to remove transient objects (people), or add objects to the scene, e.g. what would David look like on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square.
I suspect the reason they've done it this way is more about the patents than practical application.
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The next step in that goal would be making it automatically determine what's in the structure, and what's 'in the way' (a tourist, a security guard, a pigeon...). It would be annoying if a tourist was thrown in with the 3-d model if they happened to populate the set with a ton of pictures of them and the object you want modeled.
Still, as it stands now, it's still an amazing way to experience a historical landmark
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I've long since learnt that photographs and video are a totally RUBBISH way of experiencing a new place.
If you want to see something cool, physically go there. No amount of photos or video will ever give you the feeling or atmosphere of most cool things in the world. The biggest problem has to be the lack of perception of scale that photos provide (even with ample references within picture).
Get out there and see stuff.
Remember: the best thing about real life is that it's ALL in glorious high definition with
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"But dear, these slashdotters have not the means, nor the inclination to do the grand tour like any young people of means do. We must allow them their delusions!"
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I've long since learnt that communicating with people on internet forums has nothing on socialising with a bunch of people in person... yet here we find ourselves.
There's a lot of life in the grey areas dude, in my experience it's those who go with "gotta be all or nothing" attitudes that miss out more. Something about "is what happens between plans"?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course! Because every familiy has the time and resources to visit every possible interesting place on the planet.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Why not get out there, meet people from those countries, eat the food they eat, get drunk with them, and actually experience the world?
Ummm, because we can't afford it? Taking six people to Greece would consume our family vacation budget for 3-4 years. I'd rather stay closer to home and spend more time with my kids.
Mexico (Score:2)
You can go cheaply. Just do your homework first.
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You can go cheaply. Just do your homework first.
Ya visitamos a Mexico, varias partes. Es de ayuda que hable yo el espanol, y los precios si son baratos, pero hay mas del mundo que Mexico y Sudamerica. Tambien hemos viajado por Italia, donde tenemos amigos con quienes quedamos para minimizar el gasto.
Greece, however, is neither cheap nor close, and we don't have friends or relatives there. Virtual tours provide nice opportunities.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought one of the previous stories said it would do that.
What I was curious about is, how? A distinguishable photograph could be associated. But, even with one of the examples in the display, the Statue of Liberty, if this is automated, how would it be able to distinguish the real statue of liberty with say a souvenier sitting on my coffee table? Basing it on size and distinguishing shapes, it would match either one. Basing it on those, and the background objects is impossible. It already has to take into account that there are changes in the foreground (people, extra objects like light poles that are not present in very similar views). Background objects like clouds come and go, and leave entirely different images.
For not quite as distinguishable objects, it would be a lot harder. Say you used the Statue of Liberty as your starting point. If you were to travel into Manhattan, there are many very similar shapes for buildings and storefronts. Sure, unique buildings would be obvious, but for every obvious building, there are dozens of almost identical buildings.
Even then, you would have to know the city. Similar architecture can show up in a variety of cities, and be close enough to match. Cameras may record timestamps embedded in the original image (assuming unedited photos are added to the system), but there is nothing useful like geographic coordinates included.
All the photos were shot from the same perspective. It was as if they were shot by one or more photographers of about the same height. There should have been a more significant change to the view from say a 4' tall child to a 6'8" tall man. I don't claim to be a "great" photographer, but I'm pretty good. One of the essentials between being someone who can take snapshots, and someone who can take photographs, is making the composition of your photograph to illustrate the view. That frequently involves changing height and view. Maybe you want to lay on the ground for one, and climb on a ladder for another.
I took some photographs at the World Trade Center on 9/9/2001. Those photographs aren't just of the skyline, although I did take some snapshots at the time. Some are composed lookup up towards the top of the buildings from the ground, and down while leaning on the glass of an observation deck window. Photography isn't documenting a first person view. It's beautifying and romanticist a view, without necessarily changing anything about what's in the composition of the photograph.
There are other features that I don't see how they're getting, such as the zones where photos were shot from. That takes an awful lot of extrapolation. What's the difference between a photographer 10 feet away, and a photographer 200 feet away with a good zoom lens? Almost nothing, except maybe a little focal distortion at the edge of the photo. That varies with the quality of the camera and lens anyways.
I did a little project once years ago. I was sitting in the hills just under the Hollywood sign. We were sitting on top of a hill, so I had a good panorama view. I tried to keep the horizon centered, and I shot frames the whole way around. When I stitched them together in Gimp, I noticed that each frame had variations in it's color. It wasn't because of AWB, it was because the camera (good for the time) had some weird variance, so there was a difference in color from the left to the right side. So, two shots from the same camera at the same settings were significantly different.
I would be willing to suggest that the demo shown isn't a demonstration of a functional piece of software. It is a good example of what can be generated with a computer. I could do the same thing in Gimp or Photoshop. If my job let me play like this for a few weeks, I could have made a better example of vaporware.
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There are other features that I don't see how they're getting, such as the zones where photos were shot from. That takes an awful lot of extrapolation.
I suspect it isn't as complex as you think - exif tags usually include focus distance and focal length. Also included with that is sensor size or camera model, which will tell you effective focal length.
When you combine that info with the apparent size of the object in the photo (i.e. statue of liberty is x percentage of the frame high), you should be able to get a reasonable estimation on where the picture was shot from.
For relatively isolated objects (like the statue of liberty), I'd assume you'd need a s
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There are other features that I don't see how they're getting, such as the zones where photos were shot from. That takes an awful lot of extrapolation. What's the difference between a photographer 10 feet away, and a photographer 200 feet away with a good zoom lens? Almost nothing, except maybe a little focal distortion at the edge of the photo. That varies with the quality of the camera and lens anyways.
Perspective changes a lot based on where the camera is, a big zoom lense does nothing to change the perspective it just makes the image larger.
Their process finds machine recognisable points in each photo, then looks for matching points between photos. Once you know that 2 photos are of the same subject you can use the separation between these known points to work out the relative viewing position of each camera. It only takes about 4-5 common points on different planes to pinpoint where each camera is rel
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They've been talking about it for so long, but haven't released a preview, beta, or the full product to market, so that's a sure sign it's vaporware.
I do have full faith that it will be released. Two weeks after Duke Nukem Forever, and simultaniously with the first 100% bug free stable version of Windows.
I can't figure out how to write my own version of Photoshop either, but I can get my hands on it to see that it does exist.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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They could create some kind of agreement with Flickr & other photo-sharing sites where users could check a box to opt-in to photosynth.
(Or if they want to be sneaky about it, require the users to check the box to opt-out, or just change the Flickr privacy policy to opt-in all new photos.)
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To be useful you have to have access to many pictures of the scene, all of these are likely to be copyrighted, and so any commercial application will not be viable...So who exactly are they doing this for?
Ordinary people do not have nearly enough photos to make it work....Companies will not be able to use it due to the vast majority of the material being copyrighted and unavailable for commercial use ..
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"Companies will not be able to use it due to the vast majority of the material being copyrighted"
Oh no! Companies will have to learn how to take photos like people can!
"So who exactly are they doing this for?"
It's a research project. As many cools techs out of MS-research projects seem to just disapear, I'd maybe go with... themselves?
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If you read the paper [washington.edu] you will see that it is the same researchers!
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Are you complaining because Microsoft hired people to do work? You know, the corporate charter doesn't create anything itself. It is all people doing the actual work.
Microsoft: It's made of people!
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... yes. Because the platform an app runs on determines its copyright status.
Safari runs on Windows and Linux! SAFARI IS OSS.
http://phototour.cs.washington.edu/ [washington.edu] - what's that, a Microsoft logo on the official website. Oh, stolen? Perhaps you should try fact checking.
(You sir are the definition of a zealot).
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I meant to say OS X, isn't this embarrassing... well, it runs under Wine. Regardless, my point is the same.
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Absurd thing is, they buy out the researchers and at least use a fake multiplatform thing like Silverlight to impress/trick people about its possibilities.
So, Linux thing has become Windows only as result of buyout. Complete Microsoft way of doing things and exactly why people like me says "Stay away from Silverlight, .NET, their open source clones and people involved with them."
That is the "open source loving" Microsoft for you which will transform itself to multiplatform company. If you buy it...
correction/sorry (Score:1)
First line should be:
"Absurd thing is, they buy out the researchers and "don't use" a fake multiplatform thing like Silverlight to impress/trick people about its possibilities."
(blame coffee)
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I'm confused. When was Photo Tourism ever OSS?
Moreover, the Photo Tourism web site [washington.edu] seems to suggest that it has been supported by Microsoft Research from the start.
Re:Microsoft stealing from Linux again... (Score:5, Insightful)
so clearly... (Score:2)
...you must be one of them.
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Yes, and this is nothing like that. That was apparently creating additional information that simply wasn't in the original photo. This is using a whole bunch of photos of the same scene, taken at different times, angles, etc to automatically build up a 3d model. Nothing is being enhanced, you're "merely" being shown the most appropriate, pre-existing photo based on your location and view direction in the generated 3D model.
Damn cool tech, but not the same as that used in Blade Runner (or CSI, or any other "
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What do your comments have to do with the technology at all except offer the already abundant rhetoric about the company itself? Oh wait, nothing.
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http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html [adobe.com] . See how many platforms supported?
That is how companies work in age of 2008 where people uses 2-3 different operating systems in a day.
I am not your average "anti M$" guy to pick at, I am just telling that kind of actions will result in some kind of reaction, it depends on the money company has and it is not infinite.
I can't comment about the technology since I can't view it!