Photosynth iOS
We’ve watched the Photosynth project by Microsoft develop over the years and look back with fondness at the first video we saw with giddiness as Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrated the emerging technology that so many people said would not see the light of day.
Welcome to 2011- not only has Photosynth stitched together pictures on the desktop, today they announced that anyone can capture panoramic pictures anywhere and share them instantly via the new iPhone app.
In coming months, the Windows Phone app will be unveiled followed by other smartphones. The Photosynth mobile app is “putting the brain behind the camera,” said Photosynth Engineer Blaise Aguera y Arcas.
We’ve shown you a tool for panoramic videos and the new Photosynth app has major implications in the real estate world – can you say “virtual tours made in seconds” on the go? What once took an expert professionals hours to create can be stitched on a smartphone in seconds and shared on Facebook.
Realtors can upload their Photosynth images to Bing maps and even be alongside business search results!!! Even listings can be Photosynthed and put on Bing maps. If you thought Bing traffic surge was impressive as of last week, it’s about to get even better… Microsoft isn’t playing around, they’re serious about Bing.
We have that same giddy feeling we had the first time we heard about Photosynth and we think that if you watch the video above, you’ll feel the same way!
Update: Check out this example of a test run of Photosynth by 604homes.com.
Check out Marlow Harris’ test Photosynth and her original Photosynth by Microsoft years ago.
Roland Estrada
April 18, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Okay don't hate me on this opinion but this will never take off for real estate. It looks to cumbersome for any Realtor to ever use on a day-to-day basis. It's easier to take a video. Also, if you take a video using a Steadicam, the results will be more dramatic than a standard video. I'm sure it can have other applications, but not for widespread use in real estate.
Lani Rosales
April 19, 2011 at 12:30 pm
I couldn't disagree more- video requires editing, Photosynth does not. Video requires some tech savvy, Photosynth is one click and a few seconds lag time for stitching and is available for sharing on networks in seconds. Video is great, but is a separate genre altogether.
Justin Adams
July 23, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Roland, I don't hate you, but I do disagree with you though! 🙂 Panoramic images are a great way to show homes – our clients use them all the time to create virtual tours on our site, home2market.com. Many of them only use still images though, because stitching panoramics has too steep of a learning curve for most agents – this however could change it. Ultimately tours that combine still photos, panoramic images and video will be the way to go.
Amy
April 19, 2011 at 9:31 pm
You can make virtual tours right now with an iPhone ap called splice. It works very well and is super easy. I've been using it for several months.
jocubed
April 20, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Is this out on android yet?