Photosynth Blog

Photosynth for Windows Phone 8 is here!

Photosynth Team — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:41:00 GMT

We're pleased to announce that Photosynth, the acclaimed mobile panorama app, is now available on Windows Phone 8. Get Photosynth for free from the Windows Phone Store (the Store team just pushed the publish button, so it might take a few hours before you can download the app or see it in search results.)

Screenshot from a panorama captured via Photosynth on Windows Phone of a high camp on Mt Baker, WA. See the full pano here.

Sometimes a single photo - even a wide angle photo - doesn't do a place justice. Whether it's the view off a cliff, or inside an incredible cathedral, we've all been to places that cry out for a full 360 panorama. Photosynth is the only Windows Phone app that can stitch a full sphere. That's 360 degrees horizontally and vertically.

The Photosynth app for Windows Phone feels like magic. Start it up, move the camera around, and watch your panorama fill in. Make a 360 revolution and watch it join up. Capture the floor and ceiling too. When you're done the shots are automatically stitched together, and the results are beautiful and immersive.

Capturing

Stitching

Viewing

Next, you can publish your panorama to the Photosynth site and onwards to Bing, or you can share it via Facebook and Twitter.

Publish to Bing Maps

Share on Twitter

Share on Facebook

New features for Windows Phone 8 include:

Camera lens integration – Quickly capture and view panoramas by launching Photosynth directly from the built-in camera app
View shared panoramas – View panoramas shared with you via email, Facebook, or Twitter directly on your mobile device
More camera controls – Adjust for various lighting conditions by using new exposure and white balance locking options
General improvements – Enjoy an even more delightful app experience with various bug and stability fixes

Capture from camera app

View from camera roll

Adjust for lighting conditions

Photosynth has always been a collaboration between research and engineering, and this app continues the tradition by including core stitching and blending algorithms developed by Microsoft Research, and available on the desktop in the form of the Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor.

If you have a Windows Phone, go to the Windows Phone Store and install it* (the Store team just pushed the publish button, so it might take a few hours before you can download the app or see it in search results.)

Give it a try and let us know what you think with a comment here, in the Photosynth forums, in an email to photosynth@live.com, or tweet us @photosynth.

* Note: Photosynth requires significant memory for stitching, and is only available for Windows Phone phones devices with at least 512MB of RAM. Some features are only available on Windows Phone 8 devices.

Bing's Pano Bling

Photosynth Team — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:40:00 GMT

Did you see the Bing Home Page today? To celebrate the launch of Windows 8, Bing has a suitably beautiful surprise for anyone running Windows 8 already, or using the latest Chrome, Firefox, or Safari Web browser. If you haven’t seen it yet and you are in Germany, Australia, Great Britain, Japan, France, China, Canada, Spain, or the United States, stop reading this blog post and try it now.

What I am looking at?

You’re looking at the Elbe River from the famous Bastei Bridge in Germany. It was shot by Torsten Schmelling, and published by our partner 360Cities. The Photosynth team wrote the silky-smooth HTML5 viewer that displays the panorama. Try panning and zooming – you should get at least 30 frames/second if you have a reasonably recent computer.

Can I get one of my panoramas on the Bing Home Page?

Yes, but the standard is very high. If you’re a regular user of Bing you’ll know that the home page images are always beautiful, and often stunning. The panoramas that the Bing editors will choose need to be equally arresting. We'll publish requirements soon, but if you think you've got something Bing-worthy, upload it to Photosynth and send a link to us at photosynth@live.com.

Anything else cool happening at Bing to Celebrate Windows 8?

I'm glad you asked! A whole suite of Bing Apps for Windows 8 have been released worldwide today. Details on the Bing blog.

When are you going to use this new viewer on the Photosynth site?

When it’s better than our Silverlight viewer. It’s not quite there yet, as we don’t currently support highlights in HTML5.

David Gedye
Principal Program Manager for Photosynth,
Microsoft.

Photosynth for Windows Phone is here

Photosynth Team — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:20:00 GMT

We're pleased to announce that Photosynth, the acclaimed mobile panorama app, is now available on Windows Phone. Get Photosynth for free from the Windows Phone Marketplace for phones running Windows Phone 7.5 or higher*.

Screenshot from a panorama captured via Photosynth on Windows Phone of a high camp on Mt Baker, WA. See the full pano here.

Sometimes a single photo - even a wide angle photo - doesn't do a place justice. Whether it's the view off a cliff, or inside an incredible cathedral, we've all been to places that cry out for a full 360 panorama. Photosynth is the only mobile app that can stitch a full sphere. That's 360 degrees horizontally and vertically.

Capturing

Stitching

Viewing

Next, you can publish your panorama to the Photosynth site and onwards to Bing, or you can share it via Facebook and Twitter.

Publish to Bing Maps

Share on Twitter

Share on Facebook

If you have a Windows Phone running WP 7.5*, go to the Windows Phone Marketplace and install it now.

Give it a try and let us know what you think with a comment here, or in the Photosynth forums, or in an email to photosynth@live.com.

* Important Note: Photosynth requires significant memory for stitching, and is only available for phones with at least 512MB of RAM.

Twitter support added to Photosynth for iOS 1.1.3, available on App Store now

Photosynth Team — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:11:00 GMT

It has been ten months since Photosynth 1.0 was released for iOS. We have enjoyed great success on Apple’s iTunes App Store thanks to all the support and 5-star reviews our users have been giving us. Just recently, we passed the six million downloads milestone. We are proud to be the only app in the App Store that can capture and stitch a full 360 x 360 sphere right on the iPhone, free or paid.

Since our last release of Photosynth for iPhone, version 1.1.2, we have been hard at work. We are pleased to announce that Photosynth for iPhone 1.1.3 is now available on Apple’s iTunes App Store. In this release, we have added Twitter support for iOS5 devices. You can now tweet directly from within Photosynth, and include your panorama picture or a link to view your panorama interactively on Photosynth.net. For avid Twitter users with more than one Twitter account, we also included the ability to switch between multiple Twitter accounts right inside Photosynth. And of course, you can continue to share your panoramas on Facebook, via email, and publish them on Bing Maps and Photosynth.net for everyone to enjoy.

We are planning more new features for Photosynth for iPhone. Stay tuned. And happy pano’ing!

Lit Wong

Principal Development Manager

Server Maintenance Complete

Photosynth Team — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:47:00 GMT

The move of our databases to Windows Azure happened as planned today. All features of the Photosynth Web site, including viewing, exploring, searching, uploading, commenting, favoriting, embedding etc. etc. should be working as normal.

This puts us in a great position to grow our service and add new features and capabilities. Thanks for your patience!

David Gedye and the Photosynth team.

Server Maintenance Happening Now

Photosynth Team — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:56:00 GMT

In order to move more of the Photosynth backend to the wonderful world of Windows Azure (see the previous blog post) we’re going to have a scheduled outage of Photosynth on Wednesday February 1st, starting at 10:00am Pacific Time. Current plans are as follows.

10 minutes of complete system outage. You won’t be able to view or upload anything. This will be followed by

Up to 4 hours of upload outage. During this time you will be able to view synths and panos, but not upload any new ones.

All work should be completed by 2pm Pacific Time – hopefully sooner.

We will be updating our status via Twitter during this period, so please follow @Photosynth if you want to be alerted as we move through the process.

Thanks for your support.
The Photosynth team.

Photosynth Loves Windows Azure

Photosynth Team — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:13:00 GMT

Photosynth stores a LOT of data. Today we have more than a million synths and panos, and the number is rising rapidly. So far we've accumulated more than 40 terabytes (TB) of data representing more than 100 terapixels.

When we launched Photosynth more than three years ago Microsoft didn't have a general-purpose cloud-based storage and distribution network, so we used a partner to provide storage and CDN (Content Distribution Network) services. But things have changed dramatically in the last few years, and our own Windows Azure is now among the strongest cloud solutions in the industry. We're excited to be "eating our own dog food", as we say, and moving every last Photosynth pixel to Azure.

It started this morning. Right now 1/2 the uploads are being directed to Azure, and served worldwide via Azure's CDN. If all goes well, we'll increase this to 100% within a few days, and then start migrating the 40 TB of existing content from our partner's data center into Azure. That process will likely take a number of weeks, but should not interfere with your ability to view old synths/panos or upload new ones.

You shouldn't be able to tell the difference between a synth or pano hosted on Azure verses our old storage system, but just in case there are some glitches in the worldwide CDN, I've included 3 comparisons below. Please leave a comment on this page or send an email to photosynth@live.com if you see any significant differences (particularly in loading speed) between the two storage solutions.

Medium-Sized Synth on Azure
Yes --in case you were wondering, this one does appear to be a forensics class homework assignment! Check out the other synths on this account: http://photosynth.net/userprofilepage.aspx?user=bchsforensicsci

Medium-Sized Synth on Old Storage Sysyem

Desktop Panorama on Azure

Desktop Panorama on Old Storage System

Mobile Panorama on Azure

Mobile Panorama on Old Storage System

Please leave us a comment if you see any significant difference in loading performance or speed to "resolve" the image when you zoom in, and please tell us what city and country you tried this from.

Much appreciated,
The Photosynth Team

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 14 Winner

Photosynth Team — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:04:00 GMT

Congratulations go out to lukshing for the panorama Metro Moscow!

Very tough competition this week, as beautiful and amazing synths pour in from all over the world and people's own backyards. This week the win goes to lukshing's capture of the subterranean commuter infrastructure of Moscow. Enjoy your Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package, and keep sharing with the world! For all other synthers out there, there is one final chance to win an Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package and have your panorama featured in the Photosynth iPhone App. Good luck!

You can find all the details and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app. Also, be sure to check out this week's runner ups.

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 13 Winner

Photosynth Team — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:48:30 GMT

Congratulations go out to Karotte.exe for the panorama ClimbingTour3 deep in the Swiss Alps!

Contest week 13 wasn't unlucky for this great photosynth capture. Enjoy your Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package, and keep sharing with the world! For all other synthers out there, there are still 2 more weeks and chances left to win an Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package and have your panorama featured in the Photosynth iPhone App.

You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app. Also, be sure to check out this week's runner ups.

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 12 Winner

Photosynth Team — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:28:58 GMT

Congratulations go out to clairelouise for the panorama Grand Canyon!

The muddy Colorado River blending into the rich texture of the cliffs under blue sky made for a beautiful 360 capture. Enjoy your Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package, and keep sharing with the world! For all other synthers out there, there are still 3 more weeks and chances left to win an Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package and have your panorama featured in the Photosynth iPhone App.

You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app. Also, be sure to check out this week's runner ups.

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 11 Winner

Photosynth Team — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:57:33 GMT

Congratulations go out to BBMunny for their panorama Mass Exodus, from Black Rock City Nevada!

We love this capture of the eerie 8-lane post-apocalyptic procession through the Nevada wasteland. Enjoy your Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package, and keep sharing with the world! For all other synthers out there, several chances still remain to win an Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package and have your panorama featured in the Photosynth iPhone App.

You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app. Also, be sure to check there for this week's runner ups.

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 10 Winner

Photosynth Team — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 23:27:00 GMT

Congratulations go out to sillyrabbit for their panorama Fulton's On The River in Chicago, Illinois!

Great job, and keep capturing everyone! Plenty of chances left to win an Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package and have your panorama featured in the Photosynth iPhone App.

You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app. Also, be sure to check out the runner's up -- some very creative and beautiful entries this week.

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 8 & 9 Winners

Photosynth Team — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 03:04:34 GMT

Week 8's winner is sascha95 for their brilliant panorama of the Colorad River's Horseshoe Bend, near Page, Arizona.

Lars2re took week 9's prize for a panorama taken while mountain biking in Norway entitled Liahornet. Fjørå Singletrack Camp

Congratulations to both of our winners. Be sure to keep checking back in the coming weeks for more great panoramas. There are still 6 weeks left in the contest so there's plenty of time for you to create an outstanding panorama, submit it and win a Xbox with Kinect and the pride of seeing your work featured in our app. You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app.

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 7 Winner

Photosynth Team — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:49:28 GMT

Congratulations go out to FrancoisPerez for their panorama of the Steel Pagoda in Cambodia.

We're coming up on the halfway point of this contest, but you still have 8 more chances to win an Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package and have your panorama featured in the Photosynth iPhone App.

You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app

Summer Xbox Contest - Weeks 4, 5 & 6 Winners

Photosynth Team — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:36:00 GMT

Time to catch up on the past few week's winners of our Summer Xbox Contest, starting with week 4's winner AHO_2020 who won with this panorama of St. Anastasia in Verona Italy

The winner of week 5 is patrrycjuszx for his amazing panorama taken high on the slopes of Mount Blanc, the highest peak in the alps.

Week 6's winner is this panorama of the Austrian National Library in Vienna by Wolf 84

Congratulations to all three winners. Be sure to keep checking back in the coming weeks for more great panoramas. Remember there are still 9 weeks left in the contest. Plenty of time for you to create an outstanding panorama, submit it and walk away with an Xbox with Kinect and the pride of seeing your work featured in our app. You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app.

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 3 Winner

Photosynth Team — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:46:00 GMT

This week's winner of the Summer Xbox Contest, gmprague, has used the Photosynth iPhone App not to create one single brilliant panorama, but to document a the scenic higlights of an entire city: Prauge (Praha in Czech). Of the 23 panoramas he created that were eligable for this week's prize 4 of them made it into consideration for winner. In the end we settled on Praha - Zahrady Pražského hradu as the victor.

Part of what made gmprague's panoramas stand out was his use of a tripod to make sure he was rotating the phone around a single point which results in a panorama with no distortions. He even has a blog entry detailing his setup if you'd like to see what it looks like.

In all we had 632 panoramas by 195 photographers enter the contest this week. There are still 12 weeks left in the contest. Plenty of time for you to create an outstanding panorama, submit it and walk away with an Xbox with Kinect and the pride of seeing your work featured in our app. You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app.

Tony Ernst on behalf of the Photosynth Team

Get Paid to Shoot Mobile Photosynths

Photosynth Team — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:49:00 GMT

You may have seen the stories today about Microsoft’s relationship with Gigwalk – a company that organizes thousands of people to do small local tasks using their mobile phones. The Photosynth App is at the heart of this relationship, because the tasks we are sponsoring involve shooting panoramas of tens of thousands of local businesses in 8 US cities.

If you use an iPhone (3GS or 4), and live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Seattle, or Philadelphia, you can earn $4-$7 per business using the Photosynth App, and you can probably do at least 4 businesses per hour once you’ve practiced a little. That’s pretty good money for doing something as fun as shooting Photosynths.

Want to see the results of some of the early “Gigwalkers”? Check out GigwalkMike – who has done more than 30 businesses in just a few days. Most of his gigs were at a mall, but there are also downtown and suburban ones still available in each of the above cities.

How to Get your Gig On
Want to get into the action? Download the Gigwalk iPhone App from the App Store, then get yourself an account and accumulate a little “Streetcred” (their measure of experience) by doing some simple tasks. Once you’ve accumulated 20 Streetcreds you’ll be able to claim one of the Photosynth gigs. They won’t be hard to find – there are thousands of them in each of these cities.

Once you’ve given it a try, tell us what you think about it. You can leave a comment here, or on the discussion thread I’ve started about Gigwalk.

Cheers, David.

David Gedye on behalf of the Photosynth team

Summer Xbox Contest - Week 2 Winner

Photosynth Team — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:43:12 GMT

We'd like to congratulate this weeks winner of our Summer Xbox Contest, neb5, for their beautiful panorama of Sylvan Lake in the Black Hills of South Dakota. neb5, thanks for sharing your work and we hope you'll enjoy your Xbox with Kinect!

This panorama won out over the other 722 entries by 204 photographers based on it's completeness - nearly a full sphere, and the subject matter - soaring granite towers reflected in a deep blue lake.

There are still 13 more chances to win. You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app. So grab your phone, enter the contest, capture a panorama of places and events that you find interesting, and then share them with the world!

Tony Ernst on behalf of the Photosynth Team

Summer Xbox Contest – Week 1 Winner

Photosynth Team — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:23:00 GMT

With the release of the 1.1 update for the Photosynth App for iOS last week we started a contest where for the next 15 weeks we’ll be featuring the best panorama entered on the new Best of Bing Maps page in the app, and giving away an Xbox 360 with Kinect prize package to the photographer who took it.

For the first week’s contest we had 702 Entries by 313 photographers, but though there were many strong contenders, in the end, there could only be one winner.

This week’s winner is Les calanques de Cassis by gregkeverian. Congratulations Greg! Thanks for sharing this brilliant view with us.

Greg’s panorama is of a harbor along an inlet in the South of France. Check this area out on Bing Maps and see other panoramas and synths nearby.

I thought it might be useful to other aspiring entrants to give some insight into what makes a great panorama and why we considered this week's winner something special.

Subject
Chances are that a panorama of your living room or the parking lot of your local mall will never be a winner, no matter how technically perfect. We’re looking for subjects that will appeal to and interest all our users. Landmarks, scenic vistas, spectacular events and/or the unique, weird, surprising or strange will all stand a better chance of winning than the mundane.

In this case Greg did a great job selecting his subject, it’s a beautiful location and there’s so much detail to zoom in on in the harbor and cliffs. And even the “back” side of the panorama has interesting things to look at – the path along the cliffs, other hikers and blooming flowers.

Conditions/Exposure
Just like taking a traditional photo, the conditions you create a panorama under have a large effect on the outcome. Let’s say we have two panoramas of the Eiffel Tower taken from the same spot. If one was taken on a gray day in flat light, and the other in the magic hour (just after sunrise/just before sunset) with brilliant lighting, the one with the great lighting conditions will come out on top.

Though it wasn’t taken at magic hour, Greg’s panorama has great color, and there are no harsh midday shadows.

Capture
One difference between a panorama and a single photo is that it is made up of multiple captures that need to come together as a whole. A single blurry capture can ruin the chances of an otherwise great panorama. Stitching errors caused by the photographer moving the phone around their body, instead of their body around their phone is another common problem we see. Check out this how-to video for details. Another factor to consider when capturing is coverage. In most cases more is better – get as close to a full sphere capture as possible. But there are cases where a full sphere could hurt your chances. For example if you’re taking a dramatic cityscape from a hotel room balcony, including the bland hotel decor behind you isn’t going to win you any points.

Greg did a great job capturing this panorama, it’s apparent he took great care to keep the phone in a single position and it shows in the results: no stitching errors introduced by a change in position, a clean horizon, and the panorama is sharp in every direction. He also came very close to capturing a full sphere, leaving only a small section at the south pole uncovered.

Other
Have you added a name and place to your panorama? When trying to decide between two potential winners the presence or absence of this data may serve as a tie-breaker. It only takes a few seconds so be sure to add it.

This week’s winner has a clear, descriptive title, and was also associated with a place.

Get Out and Shoot!
You still have 14 more chances to win. You can find all the details on how to enter and official contest rules in the Best of Bing feature in the app. So grab your phone, enter the contest, capture a panorama of places and events that you find interesting, and then share them with the world!

Tony Ernst on behalf of the Photosynth Team

Announcing Photosynth for iOS v1.1 and the Summer Xbox Contest

Photosynth Team — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:59:00 GMT

Two months after our first version, we’re releasing the v1.1 of the Photosynth app for iOS. We’ve taken the original, tuned it, and added features that you’ve requested.

First off, we’ve added in-app sharing via email and enhanced the saving of images to the device’s camera roll with the ability to crop. We’ve also simplified the sharing process to allow you to share with Bing Maps (“listed”) at the same time as sharing to Facebook, similar to the existing Photosynth applications.

Speaking of which, with the incredible number of great panoramas that have been published to Bing Maps, we want to highlight the very best right inside the app. With the new “Best of Bing Maps” feature (available in the library) you can see regularly-updated amazing panoramas submitted by the app’s community.

In fact, to encourage more sharing, we are giving away an Xbox 360 with Kinect each week to the very best mobile panorama. You can read the details, including official contest rules, in the “Best of Bing Maps” feature in the app.

We also are introducing some new features aimed at Photosynth power users. You can now change the third-party sharing license in the Settings screen to any of the licenses already available in the other Photosynth applications. Of course, a number of issues have also been fixed that should make your experience even better.

In closing, it’s exciting building an app that helps create of so many wonderful views of the world. We’re also excited to be working hard on bringing this technology next to Windows Phone (but more on that another day).

- Eric Bennett on behalf of the Photosynth Team

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Disclaimer for Summer Xbox Contest:
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open to ages 14 and older who did not purchase any equipment for purposes of entering the Contest. Enter Contest by: 10/11/11. Void where prohibited.

Introducing the "Mastering the Photosynth App" Video Series

Photosynth Team — Mon, 30 May 2011 16:49:00 GMT

We’ve started a new video series to dive deep into how to get the most out of the Photosynth app. The series will cover topics from getting started, taking advantage of advanced features, capturing tough environments, and technical discussions of what makes it all possible.

The first episode is about one of the most common situations with the app: you want to capture a panorama in a small space. If you’ve tried it, you may notice that the capture system may get “lost” more often or that the stitching is less consistent than in outdoor scenes.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

As the video shows, focusing on rotating the camera while capturing (as opposed to moving it at arm’s length) consistently creates better panoramas. This is because the resulting panorama is representative of the view from a single point in space, as we would see the world, instead of across a variety of subtly different views.

Here’s an example of a panorama captured from that location.

The Photosynth Team

Two weeks and More than Two Million Downloads

Photosynth Team — Wed, 04 May 2011 20:26:00 GMT

As reported on the Bing blog today, we hit the two million downloads mark for our Photosynth mobile App in less than two weeks of being in the iOS App Store.

All we can say to those two million people who have loved it, and told their friends about it is thank you! We're going to keep making it better, and make it the app you always go to when you want to document or share an interesting place or event.

Events? These last two weeks have seen some amazing and terrifying ones, and people all over the world have started using the Photosynth App to capture them. From the aftermath of the earthqauke and tsunami in Japan, to the deadly tornadoes in the US, to royal wedding street parties, and even to people's reaction to the death of Osamsa Bin Laden -- Photosynth has been there.

And yes, we've heard your feedback loud and clear. People with an iPhone love it, but you want: more sharing and viewing options; better control of what gets written to the camera roll, and fewer upload glitches. People who don't have an iOS device really want it on their mobile phone. We want that too, and we're working fast and furiously on this as well as the improvements requested above.

Thanks for your support, your suggestions, and your amazing Photosynths.

The Photosynth Team.

Stress Test: Mobile pano capture 20' up a wall, and hanging upside down

Photosynth Team — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:49:00 GMT

OK. We admit it was a bit of a stunt, but we got to take advantage of the climbing skills of our longtime Test Lead, Tony Ernst. The fact that Tony is by far the most experienced photographer on our team didn't hurt either!

What am I talking about? Check out this video from our friends at Channel9. It's all interesting, and you get to meet Eric Bennett, the Program Manager for our mobile App, but if you want to get straight to the climbing, jump to about the 7 minute mark.

Below is the pano that Tony shot from on high. It is, we must admit, a little blurry due to the fact that the lighting wasn't great, and Tony couldn't hold very still in that position. But let's cut him a little slack!

For comparison, here's one I shot from ground level while they were examining Tony's pano. Less blurry, but less fun too!

Announcing the new Photosynth App

Photosynth Team — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 05:22:00 GMT

Demoed by Blaise in December, our mobile panorama app is now available in the iOS App Store. The new Photosynth app takes the advanced technology of ICE panorama stitching and shrinks it down to a mobile device. Create, view, and share panoramas all from the same app without needing a computer on any equipment other than your phone.

As with all Photosynth technologies, Photosynth.net continues to be the home in the cloud for everything you create and share (including your existing synths). In fact, the Photosynth app can view any panoramas you created with the ICE application or the Photoshop Plug-In. And, just like those panoramas, the panoramas from the Photosynth app are fully-spherical and interactive.

Check out a few results: Museum of Flight, Seattle Japanese Gardens, and Volunteer Park.

You can build up a library of panoramas right on your device, share them as images to Facebook, share interactive panoramas hosted on Photosynth.net, or publish them to Bing Maps. Panoramas published to Bing Maps can appear on the Photosynth map app, with Bing business searches (if tagged with a business), and are searchable on Photosynth.net.

The Photosynth app is available now for iOS (iPhone 4, iPhone 3Gs, iPod Touch fourth generation, and iPad 2) in the iTunes App Store.

Check out the About Page for all the details and take a look the video below.

Upcoming Change to Photosynth Terms of Use

Photosynth Team — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:20:25 GMT

We will be changing the Photosynth Terms of Use (http://photosynth.net/legal.aspx) to the Microsoft Services Agreement (http://explore.live.com/microsoft-service-agreement?ref=none) next month to provide more consistent terms across Microsoft’s online properties. This notice serves as the required 30 day notification required in the Photosynth Terms of Use before any changes are made. The Photosynth service remains the same and we’ll be adding exciting mobile panorama functionality soon. Stay tuned for more details.

If you have questions about this, don't hesitate to contact us at photosynth@live.com

Thanks very much,

David Gedye
Photosynth Group Program Manager