A couple of years ago I wrote about Microsoft’s Photosynth and the then innovation of adding your own image collections to make your own “photosynths”. This was (and still is) very cool, but Microsoft have recently added yet more coolness with the release of an iOS app which makes the process of creating photosynths stupidly easy and importantly, mobile.

The experience is a little different (from the PC version) with the mobile app creating 3D panoramas rather than the navigable worlds you can build with photosynth. When exported you get a flat image (which you can upload to Facebook or email) which looks kind of like a planar world map, but when viewed embedded in a website with Silverlight (see below) or in the mobile app itself you can pan around and get a real sense of the space where the synth was made.

Stitching images together

The method of image capture is brilliantly conceived. You simply pan around your environs and the app automatically identifies points of overlap in the scene from the camera collecting images it needs to build a panorama (above). You can also capture manually. When you’re finished capturing the app will stitch it all together and give you some options for sharing. It is simple to use, but the results are stunning – a triumph of interface design and usability.

Stitching the images together

The mobile version of photosynth is a great step forward which really makes sense. Everyone with a iOS device has a camera in their pocket so further empowering people with a tool like this is such a good fit. Photosynth for iPhone is, simply put, amazing.

As a side note, Microsoft have, to date, only released this app for iOS devices – apparently WP7 currently doesn’t have the low level hardware access available to apps which photosynth needs, so WP7 users will have to wait. You can read more about this here if you’re interested.