I Just started playing with Microsoft’s Photosynth – one word: wow.

I’ve been using the labs version of Photosynth for a year or so now and have been blown away by the impressive flow between scenes, the capacity to zoom in on images and the almost “being there” sensation it can induce.

What has been missing however, has been the ability to contribute your own images to make your own “synth”. That’s now changed with Microsoft opening up to the public and scores of people uploading their image collections to create three dimensional point clouds and impressive virtual worlds to explore.

The process of adding images is very straight forward – sign up for an account, click create,  select a collection of images with common elements (overlapping images which might work equally well as a panorama) and click upload. The software does the rest, ultimately leaving you with a URL to a new “synth” of images you have added.

The cool thing about all this is that it really has so much potential. A few ideas Ive just had:

• Virtual tourism – obvious I know, but
• Google streetview add-on
• Mapping add-ons – what does this place look like? Why not have a look?
• Navigation of virtual spaces – I’m thinking of a new way to “store” texts – imagine a virtual library where you could navigate the space, find a “text” (or media) and zoom in to consume
• Nano tours of microscopic environments
• Real estate – house inspections on the web
• Virtual school excursion

How could the learner use it?

• Creating a good synth could be a great art project
• A fantastic way of constructing virtual environments
• Virtual tourism/excursion
• …