New Photo-Modeling and Browsing Technology, Co-Developed by the University
of Washington, Microsoft Research and Microsoft Live Labs, Renders Images
With Stunning Realism and Detail
BOSTON, Aug. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- At SIGGRAPH 2006 this week,
researchers from Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and the University of
Washington will present a new photo-browsing system that enables people to
combine their photos with thousands of others collected on the Internet to
present a detailed 3-D model which gives viewers the sensation of smoothly
gliding around the scene from every angle. The prototype technology, called
Photosynth, can be previewed at http://labs.live.com/photosynth , and will
be available for download later this year. The first prototype to come out
of Microsoft Live Labs, Photosynth is based on a research paper titled
"Photo Tourism: Exploring Photo Collections in 3D," which is one of 17
papers Microsoft Research will present at this year's SIGGRAPH conference,
representing nearly 20 percent of the overall papers accepted.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO )
"Microsoft Research has been successfully transferring technology into
key Microsoft(R) products for several years. Photosynth is the first of
many upcoming examples of Live Labs' ability to take basic research from
Microsoft Research and the academic community and rapidly create prototypes
of new online services," said Dr. Gary William Flake, noted industry
technologist and Microsoft technical fellow.
Noah Snavely, a graduate student in the department of computer science
and engineering at the University of Washington, and associate professor
Steven Seitz collaborated with Microsoft researcher Richard Szeliski to
develop the technology that was the genesis of Photosynth. Their work
combined both new and established techniques in computer vision;
image-based modeling and rendering; image browsing, retrieval and
annotation; and key-point detection and matching to present unstructured
collections of photos in a 3-D perspective. As people navigate around the
model with their mouse and click on specific photos, the system smoothly
transitions between images to create an evocative sense of movement.
"It's like a hybrid of a slide show and a gaming experience that lets
the viewer zoom in to see greater detail or zoom out for a more expansive
view," said Szeliski, manager of the Interactive Visual Media Group within
Microsoft Research. "This is a revolutionary way for people to interact
with photos in a 3-D context that more closely resembles the place where
the images were captured."
Demos, screen shots, the research paper and other information on Photo
Tourism can be found on the University of Washington
(http://phototour.cs.washington.edu ) and Microsoft Research
(http://www.research.microsoft.com/IVM/PhotoTours ) Web sites.
Microsoft Research teams with scientists at scores of universities and
other organizations each year as part of the company's commitment to
expanding the boundaries of computer science and related fields. "Working
with Microsoft Research and Live Labs on this project has been a rewarding
experience for me as well as an invaluable opportunity for my student Noah
to pioneer a technology that can impact a huge user base," Seitz said. "The
collaborative environment brought a greater level of expertise, sparking
some important ideas and bringing results to the project that we might not
have otherwise seen."
Snavely, Seitz and Szeliski will present their research paper detailing
the technology on Aug. 2 at SIGGRAPH 2006, the 33rd annual international
conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques.
The gathering of roughly 25,000 attendees is sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH, the
leading professional society for computer graphics and interactive
techniques.
Microsoft Research's association with SIGGRAPH spans more than a
decade. Researchers from Microsoft's labs in Beijing, China; Cambridge,
England; and Redmond, Wash., have contributed 17 of the 86 papers accepted
for SIGGRAPH 2006, with 11 of those papers resulting from Microsoft
Research collaborations with various universities.
Among these projects is a technology system for drag-and-drop pasting
of an object or region from one source image -- such as a detail of a
surfer or a sand pyramid within a photo -- onto another image in such a way
that they blend seamlessly. Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong, Microsoft Research Asia and the Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology co-developed this user-friendly image-composition tool.
Another paper authored by four researchers from Microsoft Research
Cambridge describes AutoCollage, an automatic procedure for efficiently
constructing a visually appealing photo layout from a set of images. Key
features of the AutoCollage technology include its ability to combine more
than 50 images; transparently blend the seams between images; and recognize
characteristics of different objects, such as sky and faces, to position
and depict them appropriately.
Links to the papers Microsoft Research contributed to this year's
SIGGRAPH conference, as well as the Microsoft papers contributed at the
2004 and 2005 SIGGRAPH conferences, are available at
http://research.microsoft.com/news/featurestories/source/siggraphpapers2006
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About Microsoft Research
Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both
basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering.
Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce
the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing
technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and
collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to
advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition,
user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and
methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical
sciences. Microsoft Research employs more than 700 people in five labs
located in Redmond, Wash.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England;
Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates
openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and
learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance
the field of computer science. More information can be found at
http://www.research.microsoft.com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software,
services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full
potential.
NOTE: Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. in the
United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.
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Related links:
http://labs.live.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/
Photo Notes:
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