Ever since Blaise Aguera y Arcas demoed Photosynth last year at the TED Conference, most people who saw it have wanted to get their hands on the software. The demo was, as the TED web site called it, simply jaw dropping. Photosynth was able to take hundreds of photos of the Notre Dame Cathedral gathered from Flickr and use them to create a virtual 3D environment by recognizing specific aspects of the cathedral in each picture how they related to the other photos. Each photo was placed in space accurate to where it was taken, allowing viewers to zoom around the cathedral and get an accurate picture of what it looks like from all angles.
自从Blaise Aguera和Arcas 去年在TED大会上演示Photosynth以来 ，大多数看到它的人都希望获得使用该软件的机会。 正如TED网站所称的那样，该演示只是让人大跌眼镜。 通过识别来自每张照片中大教堂的特定方面，Photosynth能够拍摄从Flickr收集的数百张圣母大教堂的照片，并将其用于创建虚拟3D环境。 每张照片都被精确地放置在拍摄地点，从而使观看者可以在大教堂周围放大并从各个角度获得一张准确的照片。
Last week, Microsoft released Photosynth as a free, Windows-only browser plugin and application, along with 20GB of free online storage to store your “synths.” The plugin supposedly runs on Firefox 3 and IE 7, but I could only get it working under Internet Explorer. Photosynth fits into Microsoft’s philosophy of software + services, in which desktop software is augmented by web-based components.
上周，微软发布了Photosynth，它是一个免费的，仅限Windows的浏览器插件和应用程序，以及20GB的免费在线存储空间来存储您的“合成器”。 该插件据说可以在Firefox 3和IE 7上运行，但是我只能在Internet Explorer下运行它。 Photosynth符合Microsoft的软件+服务理念，其中，基于Web的组件增强了桌面软件。
Once I got it working, Photosynth was exceptionally easy to use. Just choose your photos, add them to the Photosynth creator app, and click a button to make your synth. The process takes a few minutes and the photos are uploaded to your account on Photosynth.net. The software grades the “synthiness” of your creations — which I gather is a numerical representation of how good the coverage of your subject is and how well your photos stitch together. My first attempt — the entire first floor of the SitePoint offices in about 40 pictures — was a complete failure, achieving just 32% “synthiness.” My second attempt, a depiction of just the break area in the office and which is embedded below, had a better 61% “synthiness” score utilizing 45 photos.
一旦工作，Photosynth便非常易于使用。 只需选择您的照片，将它们添加到Photosynth创作者应用程序中，然后单击一个按钮即可进行合成。 该过程需要几分钟，并且照片将被上传到Photosynth.net上的帐户。 该软件对您作品的“合成度”进行评分-我收集到的数值表示您的主题的覆盖范围以及照片拼接得如何好。 我的第一个尝试-在SitePoint办公室的整个第一层(约40张图片)中完全失败，仅实现了32％的“合成度”。 我的第二次尝试是只对办公室的休息区进行描述，并嵌入在下面，使用45张照片获得了61％的“合拍性”得分更好。
Ideally, synths should have 150-200 photos and no less than 20.
理想情况下，合成器应具有150-200张照片且不少于20张。
While the speed and ease of use of Photosynth is indeed impressive, I unfortunately found the actual synths to be a little underwhelming. Part of that might be because my subject matter for creating test synths wasn’t the best fodder for this technology — it excels at spatially relating photos taken from multiple angles of a single object, whereas my attempts at “synthing” used photos of a mostly empty space taken from essentially the same spot.
尽管Photosynth的速度和易用性确实令人印象深刻，但不幸的是，我发现实际的合成器有点让人难以理解。 部分原因可能是因为我创建测试合成器的主题并不是该技术的最佳选择-它擅长于将从单个物体的多个角度拍摄的照片在空间上关联起来，而我的“合成”尝试则使用了大部分从基本上相同的位置获取的空白区域。
However, even the demos on the site from Microsoft employees and National Geographic weren’t as impressive as the original TED demo of Notre Dame. Perhaps that’s because of inferior photo sets, or perhaps it is due to slight changes in the viewer (I found it harder to zoom out and get the overall “3D” picture, for example, even with synths that should have been perfect for that, such as the Taj Mahal and the Sphinx).
但是，即使是Microsoft员工和《国家地理》网站上的演示也不如Notre Dame的原始TED演示那样令人印象深刻。 也许是因为照片质量较差，或者是由于观看者的细微变化(例如，我发现很难放大并获得整体的“ 3D”图片，即使合成器本来应该是完美的，例如泰姬陵和狮身人面像)。
Microsoft’s TED demo scraped hundreds of images from Flickr and was able to relate them spatially to create a 3D representation of an object. But right now, Photosynth is a personal technology — there’s no easy way to collaborate and gather multiple photos from outside sources. You can only create synths using pictures from your computer, and most people are unlikely to have the comprehensive photo sets available necessary to create high quality synths. Microsoft hinted that more collaboration tools are coming, though. When that happens, the technology will be less of a novelty, as people will (hopefully) be able to contribute photos to public synths and keep making them better.
微软的TED演示从Flickr抓取了数百张图像，并能够在空间上关联它们以创建对象的3D表示。 但是，现在，Photosynth是一种个人技术-没有简便的方法可以协作并从外部来源收集多张照片。 您只能使用计算机上的图片来创建合成器，大多数人不太可能拥有创建高质量合成器所需的全面照片集。 微软暗示，将会有更多的协作工具 。 当这种情况发生时，该技术将不再具有新颖性，因为人们(希望)能够为公共合成器贡献照片并不断改进它们。
Have you tried Photosynth? What were your thoughts? What sort of things have you synthed?
您是否尝试过Photosynth？ 你有什么想法 你合成了什么样的东西？
翻译自: https://www.sitepoint.com/microsft-release-photosynth-just-a-novelty/
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