Stonehenge Photosynth: 3-D Exploration

A new photo technology enables you to view an historic landmark like you've never experienced it before – part slideshow, part gaming experience.

You’ve seen photos of historic Stonehenge but never before like this. Microsoft and National Geographic have teamed up to create a new way of looking at pictures. Photosynth, as they call it, shows you a collection of photos that mimics a 3-D panoramic slideshow, so you get a you-are-there sense of Stonehenge. Some 3,000 images were taken and packed into this new viewing experience to give you a feeling of smoothly gliding around the scene and taking it in from every angle.

Photosynth transforms regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your “synth” is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos.

Photosynth was born of a collaboration between Microsoft and the University of Washington, based on the groundbreaking research of Noah Snavely (UW), Steve Seitz (UW),and Richard Szeliski (Microsoft Research)

Photography: Rebecca Hale

VIEW: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/video/player#/?titleID=1551027589&catID=1

Length: 2:55

SEE ALSO:

Microsoft Live Labs – Photosynth: http://livelabs.com/photosynth/

Feature Article: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/stonehenge/alexander-text

Photo Gallery: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/stonehenge/geiger-photography

Wild Chronicles (video): http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/video/player?titleID=1532920946