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National

‘Synthing’ virtual culture

Shyam Ranganathan

“Synths” can be viewed on
Windows PC
Users can combine photographs of same scene

Chennai: Imagine looking along a corridor in the Virupaksha temple built by the Vijayanagar kings at Hampi. As a sculpted pillar with a Yali (mythical creature featured like a lion) catches your eye, you move towards it and peer at it closely. Then your eyes fall on the majestic nine-tiered eastern gateway and you pause to wonder at its breathtaking beauty.

Now, imagine doing it all while sitting at your computer like a typical armchair aesthete or on your iPhone while travelling to work.

According to http://www.photosynth.net, Microsoft’s Photosynth tool provides the ability “to share the places and things you love using the cinematic quality of a movie, the control of a video game, and the mind-blowing detail of the real world.” The site also provides examples of “synths” of different places and events ranging from the Great Pyramid at Giza to U.S. President Obama’s inauguration.

And while the earlier release of the tool last year only allowed “synthing” of photos from one user, upgrades allow pooling of photos from multiple sources. Also the “synths” can now be viewed on the Windows PC using the Direct 3D viewer (a cross-platform Silverlight viewer is also available) and even on an iPhone using the iSynth application.

P. Anandan, Managing Director, Microsoft Research India, says stereoscopic vision — the ability of the human eye to gauge 3-D reality from 2-D representations — has been an important problem in computer vision research. Until recently, using the positions of the cameras (at least two) 3-D reproductions were possible, just as the brain uses knowledge of the relative positions of the eyes to get its 3-D vision.

Collaborative research between students from the University of Washington and Microsoft pioneered Photosynth, eliminating the need to know the relative positions of cameras. The acquisition of Seadragon, a company specialising in software for seamlessly browsing through visual data (including photographs) irrespective of size, then helped in the display offered by the Photosynth “viewer.”

Now, Dr. Anandan says, different Photosynth users can combine photographs of the same scene taken from multiple angles to obtain a “point cloud” which can then be transformed into a navigable 3-D representation of the actual scene. These can then be viewed on different platforms using the appropriate viewer software developed for them.

“The more cameras there are, obviously the merrier. But Photosynth’s “synther” can intelligently combine the information provided by photographs taken from simple digital cameras to get as close to a realistic 3-D re-creation of the scene as is possible,” he says.

Armed with Photosynth and high resolution digital cameras, a Microsoft research team worked in Srivilliputhur, a temple town in South Tamil Nadu to create a demo for the Digital Heritage Project, which was unveiled last year. The demo (available at http://virtualindia.msresearch.in/DH/demo.html) provides a walkthrough of the temple with audio commentary attached.

Dr. Anandan says Microsoft is looking at mapping Hampi next as part of the project, bringing the Virupaksha temple and other historical monuments to computer-hooked connoisseurs.

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