From Camera to 3D

I was exploring some new Microsoft products after attending a webinar earlier this week and came across an interesting tool called Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs.  Photosynth takes photos you take of a person, item or scenery and stitches them together to create a full view 3D object.  While this is a neat tool and could be very beneficial to some markets (think education), it is not a practical tool for the everyday user/phototaker.  The reason; to get this 3D rendering you have to take MANY pictures of the object.  In some of the examples, number of images were well above 100 OF A SINGLE ITEM.  Like I said though, this is a specialized tool that isn’t necessarily intended for the standard consumer market.  Imagine you are a social studies teacher teaching your students about the Sphinx.  Showing students a few images is neat, now imagine being able to take them on a virtual 3D fieldtrip where they can see it from all angles.  That is downright cool!