Microsoft released its innovative Photosynth software and website, which enables the apparently easy creation of a 3D environment which is navigable and can be uploaded for sharing on Photosynth.net. The Microsoft software was created by its Live Labs, in collaboration with scientists from the Graphics and Imaging Lab (GRAIL) at the University of Washington.

The Redmond company and its partner have developed the 8.2 MB browser plug-in over a few years of hard work. What the software contraption actually does is automatical analysis of hundreds of photos of a single location and automatic rendering of a 3D world of that spot. This means that Microsoft has, back on its servers, installed mega-powerful hardware muscle which can get the job done rather quickly.

Microsoft's Photosynth enables users to rotate a “synth” in 360 degrees, look up or down, pan from left to right, zoom in or zoom out for an amazing experience, given that quality photos are put in. The software is able to smoothly zoom into a photo as deep as the resolution allows through an another innovation which is dubbed Seadragon and was partially integrated into Silverlight. Seadragon enables for smooth zooming without network lag, despite the large amounts of data theoretically required to display detail.

The Live Labs team warned in a blog post that you will probably run into an occasional bug or hiccup due to the software's early stage, but promised that they will fix problems as quickly as possible.

Right now, the Photosynth.net website is down due to the unexpected demand. It displays the following message:

The Photosynth site is a little overwhelmed

The Photosynth site is a little overwhelmed just now. While we’re reviving it you can still install the viewer and check out some amazing synths. Download and install our viewer, and then refresh this page.