New York — Software major Microsoft in the past has made plenty of apps for Apple’s iOS, but, Redmond Vole on Monday stepped into the mobile photo-sharing ring with the launch of Photosynth for Apple’s iOS — that is, for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, which takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs them in a 3D environment.
While it is not the first panoramic-photo app to arrive for iOS, Microsoft’s new Photosynth app blows it away. Fresh off the release, it is one of the few such apps that is free and that emphasizes photo-sharing of its well-received Bing app for iPad.
It is one of the company’s most noteworthy online technologies of recent years. Currently, it is only available for iOS, but other versions are expected for other platforms in the future, presumably including Microsoft’s own Windows Phone.
The free app has a fairly easy but somewhat clunky way of allowing people to take multiple photos with an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad 2 and then stitch the photos together into interactive three-dimensional single panoramic image.
“After capturing a great panorama of a museum you love or a beautiful garden, choose to publish to Bing Maps and it could be seen by the world,” Microsoft’s Bing team said in a blog post. “From the map, ‘dive in’ and see your panorama next to that museum. Or, experience it seamlessly alongside the museum’s listing in Bing (if tagged with the location name).”
With the app, you can point your iPhone or other iOS device at a scene, whether it is a museum facility, kid’s birthday party, or tourist attraction, the app automatically snaps photos as the camera moves and displays in real-time a preview of the final image.
Photosynth utilizes the device’s motion sensor to automatically produce a virtual environment, so all a user has to do is move the camera around. A single tap on the screen and Photosynth automatically stitches the images together. The newly created image can then be uploaded and shared on Facebook, the Photosynth website or through Microsoft’s Bing mapping service.
Interestingly, the latter of the two options is notable as it creates an opportunity for a crowd-sourced alternative to Google’s own photo-mapping project, Street View. Moreover, Photosynth also allows business owners or patrons to photograph their spaces, link to the business and then incorporate the panoramic image into Bing Maps’ directory service for instant 360-degree publicity.
Microsoft first previewed Photosynth at its 2006 financial analyst meeting, several months after it acquired Seattle-based Seadragon Software, which developed technology to display large images on computers and handheld devices. Photosynth has been available as a desktop panoramic tool since 2008; and just last week, Microsoft released a beautiful Bing iPad app, and other Microsoft apps have popped up all over the iTunes App Store.
The free app is available now for devices running iOS 4.1 or higher, but will be released next for Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 7 platform, the company said. For more information, see the video below:
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