I had a fantastic snowy walk today…
Archive for the 'Photography' Category
I have had some fun taking a few Photosynths in London and wanted to follow Chris Pendleton’s approach to putting them on a map. However, I decided to use the Multimap API…
Here is my map of Photosynths. The great advantage of the Multimap API for this is that I can use grid decluttering, which is useful when several Photosynths are located close to each other (i.e. when you zoom out you can still see them all)
It really is easy taking the Photosynths and embedding them in the application.
Here is the code:
<script type="text/javascript"> var mapviewer; function onLoad() { //Add the map mapviewer = MMFactory.createViewer( document.getElementById( 'mapviewer' )); mapviewer.goToPosition( new MMLatLon( 51.50854, -0.06619), 13); mapviewer.setMapType( MM_WORLD_HYBRID ); map_type_widget = new MMMapTypeWidget (); pan_zoom_widget = new MMPanZoomWidget (); overview_widget = new MMOverviewWidget (); location_widget = new MMLocationWidget (); mapviewer.addWidget ( map_type_widget ); mapviewer.addWidget ( pan_zoom_widget ); mapviewer.addWidget ( overview_widget ); mapviewer.addWidget ( location_widget ); addMarkers(); } function addMarkers() { mapviewer.removeAllOverlays(); var group_name1 = 'Group 1'; var icon = MM_DEFAULT_ICON.copy(); icon.groupName = group_name1; var pos = new MMLatLon( 51.46135, -0.05164 ); var marker = mapviewer.createMarker( pos, {'label': 'Nunhead1', 'text' : 'P1', 'icon' : icon} ); marker.setInfoBoxContent("<iframe frameborder=0 src='http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=35bbb7bc-d58f-48bc-9186-5bc19c456dd5' width='400' height='300'></iframe>"); var pos2 = new MMLatLon( 51.46325, -0.05153 ); var marker2 = mapviewer.createMarker( pos2, {'label': 'Nunhead2', 'text' : 'P2', 'icon' : icon} ); marker2.setInfoBoxContent("<iframe frameborder=0 src='http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=DAEF7506-5F32-4413-99CE-DEEC112D75DA' width='400' height='300'></iframe>"); //nunhead 3 var pos3 = new MMLatLon( 51.46383, -0.05121 ); var marker3 = mapviewer.createMarker( pos3, {'label': 'Nunhead2', 'text' : 'P3', 'icon' : icon} ); marker3.setInfoBoxContent("<iframe frameborder=0 src='http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=DF97FEEF-B370-4E5D-9A34-4238A721BAA1' width='400' height='300'></iframe>"); //bank var pos4 = new MMLatLon( 51.51344, -0.08881 ); var marker4 = mapviewer.createMarker( pos4, {'label': 'Nunhead2', 'text' : 'P4', 'icon' : icon} ); marker4.setInfoBoxContent("<iframe frameborder=0 src='http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=7DB0ED82-3038-4EDC-AD03-A630B8FA00E7' width='400' height='300'></iframe>"); //deptford var pos5 = new MMLatLon( 51.47942, -0.02417 ); var marker5 = mapviewer.createMarker( pos5, {'label': 'Nunhead2', 'text' : 'P5', 'icon' : icon} ); marker5.setInfoBoxContent("<iframe frameborder=0 src='http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=891FBC9E-5085-4D7E-A5BD-C98998EE3DB3' width='400' height='300'></iframe>"); mapviewer.declutterGroup( group_name1, {}, MM_DECLUTTER_GRID ); } MMAttachEvent( window, 'load', onLoad ); </script>
And the HTML:
</head> <body> <!-- The Multimap Map --> <!-- The Multimap Map --> <H1>Tim's Photosynths</H1> <div id="mapviewer" style="width: 800px; height: 500px;"></div> <br><LI>Click on the P markers to see the photosynths</LI> </body> </html>
Note - you need to change the " (double quotes) to ‘ (single quotes) in the iframe text provided by Photosynth when adding this to the infobox content.
Update
Peter Batty has done a great Photosynth review with some good tips here.
Photosynth is my favourite technology at the moment and I am really excited to see that it is now live for all! See http://photosynth.net/Default.aspx
More info is here.
We’re pleased to announce the first full release of Photosynth, available now at photosynth.com. Photosynth takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs the scene or object in a 3-D environment. For those of you who have seen the videos or tried our tech preview, you could experience synths that we made in the lab and get a feel for what Photosynth is and how it works. But now, for the first time ever you can create synths from your own pictures and share them with your friends. Explore great synths from others or create a few of your own.
Seeing is believing - try making one! It is really easy.
Update
Chris Pendleton has just blogged a Virtual Earth and Photosynth mashup. See here. Go Chris!
One of the most interesting things I saw at WhereCamp earlier in the year was Gigapan. Rich Gibson did an excellent session on how it all works. Essentially “the Gigapan camera is a simple robotic platform for capturing very high-resolution … panoramic images from a standard digital camera.” To do this Gigapan have developed a robotic camera mount that automatically moves the camera to take hundreds of photos for a panorama:
Unfortunately the beta for the camera mount has closed - but I have put my name down for the real thing!
In fact there are some great gigapans of the WhereCamp itself.
This video provides an overview of gigapan.
Rich’s gigapan of Piccadilly Circus is one of my favourites, it gives a real sense of ‘place’ and the associated bustle:
Mark Brown has been doing a great series of videos on how Microsoft Virtual Earth flies its imagery data. The technical innovation in this area is amazing.
The 1st video covers the Ultracam camera and software with the team in Graz (Austria) who created it.
The 2nd video follows this up with a look at flying with the Ultracam.
I’ve just be reading the latest on the Google StreetView on bbc news here. The debate is just getting ridiculous when you see quotes like:
Personally I am a firm believer in the alleged Scott McNeely quote:
“Privacy is dead; get over it”?
On the other hand when it comes to Google cars in bus lanes I am really worried.
Update - 4th Aug
StreetView has been approved by the British Information Commissioner’s Office. See this story.
I’ve just be reading the latest on the Google StreetView on bbc news here. The debate is just getting ridiculous when you see quotes like:
Personally I am a firm believer in the alleged Scott McNeely quote:
“Privacy is dead; get over it”?
On the other hand when it comes to Google cars in bus lanes I am really worried.
Update - 4th Aug
StreetView has been approved by the British Information Commissioner’s Office. See this story.
I was really interested in Soul Solutions Birds Eye Photo Mosaic of Sydney Opera House. It is one of those things that is completely pointless but utterly cool.
It caught my interest as I have a weird habit of taking pictures of decaying doors. Here is one of them:
Now I have hundreds of these door photos and I have always be wondering what to do with them. So I thought a photo mosaic with deep zoom would be an ideal thing to have my 1st stab at Silverlight with…
I followed the same steps as Soul Solutions (using Andrea Mosaic which really is awesome).
First I made a photomosaic of a Berlin door out of photos of doors in Berlin:
Then I used Deep Zoom Composer to make the Silverlight project. It was all surprisingly easy (you do not even need to use Visual Studio).
You need to see it in silverlight to get the real effect. Here is the silverlight page (use your mouse wheel to zoom in/out and left drag to pan). You will be promted download Silverlight if you haven’t already.
Needlesss to say I am now a Silverlight convert!
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