If You Thought Photoshop Was Good...

Researchers at Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore presented image processing technology at Siggraph Asia that can create realistic photo composites from a simple sketch. The technology takes a users' rough-labeled drawing of a scene and compares its elements to objects extracted from photos on the Internet. These real-world snippets are then filtered, matched and synthesized Photoshop-style into a single image. And while results vary, they need to be seen to be believed.

Like Microsoft’s Photosynth, PhotoSketch (above) shows how advanced images processing and search algorithms can be used for more than just face-matching and sorting through surveillance footage. For instance, they can also be used to create a photograph of a cheetah chasing a Motocross racer through the desert (skip to 0:14).

No wonder the site seems to be loading awfully slowly and has been down this morning. Sure it's being flooded with those in disbelief.

Photosynthing Entire Cities

I have written about Mirosoft's Photosynth before. It's a technology that takes collections of single still image photographs and mashes them together in remarkable ways. From overlapping photos, the 3D structure of an object or building emerges.

Recently, folks used Photosynth to create create a truely amazing view of Obama innauguration.

Now, it is being used to model entire cities!

Update: Obama Photosynth Results

Well the results of the CNN/Microsoft collaboration are in. Take a look at what happens when you "synth" the collective photographs of an innauguration crowd into a single 3D model.





More on Microsoft Photosynth here.

Photosynthing the Inauguration

CNN and Microsoft are attempting to create a moment-to-moment high resolution 3D model of the Obama inauguration using only submitted photographs from excited Obama onlookers...and Microsoft's Photosynth software. The technology works by finding commonalities among hundreds, or thousands, or even tens of thousands, of individual photographs of a particular event or place. Once processed, each image's position in the broader 3D context can be calculated with its visual information becoming part of a larger model. Microsoft has already used the technology to create visually stunning models of the Sphinx, the Statue of Liberty and more.

From Microsoft Live Labs:

The world will change on January 20th when Barack Obama, the President-elect takes the oath of office and becomes the 44th President of the United States. "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." If you are going to be among the millions attending, you can be part of history by helping create the most immersive and detailed experience of a single moment ever created.

If successful, in many ways the project will provide as detailed and comprehensive a picture of the occasion as any professional news broadcast. And, in the future there is no reason this technology couldn’t make leap to video, as well. Videosynth? We might be looking at the future of citizen journalism.