Just 2 weeks before the recent riots in Athens, my lovely girlfriend and I were lucky enough to spend the weekend in this beautiful city. Since this is a Technet blog post, I will not go in to detail about the Roman ruins, the ancient Greek ruins and the unique combination of concrete jungle mixed with archaeological sites, however, I would recommend a visit if you have not been.
One of the places we visited during out stay was the Ancient Greek Agora, which loosely translated is the ancient commercial centre. One of the buildings had been beautiful preserved (I believe in the 19th century) and now hosts a museum of ancient artefacts which have been discovered on various archaeological digs (or whilst expanding the Metro system!) around Athens. It is within this museum that I decided to take some photos and take advantage of the power of Microsoft Photosynth to record details of an interesting exhibit within the museum.
The exhibit which caught my interest was a collection of pottery shards which were inscribed with people's names. These pieces were used as part of a voting system, where political candidates could be voted out of power. The candidates with the highest number of 'votes' were obliged to withdraw from Athens for a ten year period. The exhibit provided a variety of pieces, along with descriptive text, all of which was too large to capture in a single photograph.
The exhibit which caught my interest was a collection of pottery shards which were inscribed with people's names. These pieces were used as part of a voting system, where political candidates could be voted out of power. The candidates with the highest number of 'votes' were obliged to withdraw from Athens for a ten year period.
The exhibit provided a variety of pieces, along with descriptive text, all of which was too large to capture in a single photograph.
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. How did I use this to capture the interesting Greek exhibit? I simply took a bunch of photos, from various angles and at a variety of zoom levels and then used Photosynth to create a 3D composition to represent the complete set of images (click on the image to browse the 3D composition) which allows you to view any part of the exhibit from multiple angles, as well as zooming in and out. You can even zoom in to the text at the top of the display in case and read the full description. View my Photosynth
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. How did I use this to capture the interesting Greek exhibit?
I simply took a bunch of photos, from various angles and at a variety of zoom levels
and then used Photosynth to create a 3D composition to represent the complete set of images (click on the image to browse the 3D composition)
which allows you to view any part of the exhibit from multiple angles, as well as zooming in and out. You can even zoom in to the text at the top of the display in case and read the full description.
View my Photosynth
Firstly, go to www.photosynth.net
When visiting the website for the first time, you may be prompted to install the Silverlight plugin. From the homepage you will have the option to view existing Photosynths which have been created by other users. To create your own, simply click the Create you synth option on the homepage. If this is the first time you have created a Photosynth, you will be prompted to download the Photosynth plugin. The download is about 8mb, so be patient - it's worth the wait! :-) Once the plugin is loaded, the process is very simple, all you have to do is select the collection of photos to use for your 'synth'. Provide any tags and description which you feel necessary, and the click the 'Synth' button. The time to compile/upload your composition will depend on the number and size of your images. Once complete, the tool will show you a 'synthy' percentage. This percentage indicates how many of your photos were 'synthed' together. If it is 100%, it means that all photos were merged in to one single 3D composition. Anything less means that some of your photos could not be merged, so you will actually see more than one composition when browsing in 3D. Then simply click on the 'View' button to view and share your Photosynth creation. It's THAT easy!
When visiting the website for the first time, you may be prompted to install the Silverlight plugin. From the homepage you will have the option to view existing Photosynths which have been created by other users.
To create your own, simply click the Create you synth option on the homepage. If this is the first time you have created a Photosynth, you will be prompted to download the Photosynth plugin. The download is about 8mb, so be patient - it's worth the wait! :-)
Once the plugin is loaded, the process is very simple, all you have to do is select the collection of photos to use for your 'synth'.
Provide any tags and description which you feel necessary, and the click the 'Synth' button. The time to compile/upload your composition will depend on the number and size of your images.
Once complete, the tool will show you a 'synthy' percentage.
This percentage indicates how many of your photos were 'synthed' together. If it is 100%, it means that all photos were merged in to one single 3D composition. Anything less means that some of your photos could not be merged, so you will actually see more than one composition when browsing in 3D.
Then simply click on the 'View' button to view and share your Photosynth creation.
It's THAT easy!
I recommend viewing some of the existing Photosynths from the homepage in order to get an idea of what works well. Generally speaking, the more photos you can take, the better. Happy Synthing! :-)