Microsoft's Photosynth swamped

By Stephen Withers
Friday, 22 August 2008 05:46

Business IT - Technology

A massive influx of users keen to try out Microsoft's new Photosynth photo visualisation service brought the system to its knees, forcing Microsoft to temporarily restrict access.

Photosynth accepts a set of photos of an object or place - not necessarily taken at the same time or on the same camera - and then determines the relationships between the images to create a 3D model. That users can then navigate around that model (or 'synth'), much like a video game, in order to see the photos.

According to the company, between 20 and 300 photos are required, depending on the size of the place or object. It is important that shots overlay, and that they are taken from multiple vantage points and angles. The 3D model is created by a program that runs on the users PC before being uploaded to the server.

While server capacity was being increased, visitors to the site saw a message reading "The Photosynth site is a little overwhelmed" if they had not already installed the Photosynth plug-in, or a sample synth if they had.

At the time of writing, limited service had restored, but it was still not possible to upload new synths.

In addition to synths published by users, Microsoft offers some samples including synths of Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal, created from National Geographic photos.

What are the requirements for using Photosynth? The key specs are on page two.