Recreating Cities Using Online Photos

Roland Piquepaille writes "The billion of images available from a site like Flickr has stimulated the imagination of many researchers. After designing tools using Flickr to edit your photos, another team at the University of Washington (UW) is using our vacation photos to create 3D models of world landmarks. But recreating original scenes is challenging because all the photos we put on Flickr and similar sites don't exhibit the same quality. With such a large number of pictures available, the researchers have been able to reconstruct with great accuracy virtual 3D model of landmarks, including Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Statue of Liberty in New York City."

Comments

Home use

[Cillian]

I wonder how many photos it needs of an object to produce a decent model and if the software will ever be released to the public - it would be amazing to be able to produce a 3d model of an object just by snapping a bunch of photos from different angles and bunging them into a piece of software. (I know there are things to create a model using a video camera and a turntable, but that's not quite as easy as being able to grab your camera anywhere and make a model.)

Warsaw

[flyingfsck]

After the 2nd war, Warsaw was rebuilt from photos. If you visit Warsaw today, you'd think that it is an old city. In fact, it is all new, the Poles just like it that way.