Microsoft has launched yet another “me-too” alternative to a key Google application. This time, it’s aiming at Google Earth and StreetView via GeoSynth, a technology that takes several images and builds StreetView-like 2D and 3D world views. But rather than using images captured by a StreetView car–which has had all kinds of problems of late–it relies on user-supplied photos. It’s kind of like a YouTube for maps.
GeoSynth is based on Microsoft’s PhotoSynth technology, which came out of Microsoft Live Labs. Fast Company describes it this way:
By performing some clever math equations, [Photosynth] can take crowd-sourced images of famous landmarks, and create pretty seamless 3D-walkaround footage by morphing and transforming the images successively as the viewer’s virtual viewpoint translates around.
It’s pretty cool. And with GeoSynth, Microsoft hopes to expand Photosynth to the point where it eventually provides views of every landmark in the world. The idea is that GeoSynth will take user-supplied geo-tagged images, store them in a special database, and use them to form new views. The more users who participate, the more places can be added, and the more detailed the images. Microsoft says it will also have some kind of moderator in place to ensure that the best images from a single location are used.
What’s interesting here is not so much that Microsoft is challenging StreetView, but that it’s doing it in a smarter way than Google. No privacy-invading, havoc-wreaking StreetView cars necessary. Still, there is a catch. Microsoft’s tool is relying on end users to capture and upload the imagery, so it won’t be nearly as comprehensive as StreetView. But for popular places and landmarks, GeoSynth will probably trump StreetView in overall detail and views. (In fact, it might end up being a better draw for terrorists, since it will be a treasure-trove of popular landmarks.)
GeoSynth’s an interesting take on the problem. And pretty surprising. Who would have thought Microsoft, not Google, would go the more chaotic, user-supplied route?
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