[LINK] Demo of photosynth

[Kim Holburn]

On 2007/Jun/08, at 1:05 AM, Rick Welykochy wrote:

> Kim Holburn wrote:
>
>> http://www.devilducky.com/media/62817/
>> Video demo of Seadragon and photosynth including a reproduction of  
>> Notre Dame cathedral, constructed entirely, digitally, from photos  
>> got from a Flickr search.
>> Pretty nice.
>
> Bloody amazing!

It is isn't it.

> I found it hard to grasp the concept that the only display/interaction
> overhead is the number of pixels on the screen. Surely there is a lot
> of overhead going on in the background. The entire contents of Bleak
> House for example require a scalable vector rendering of the text to
> be stored *somehwhere*. That is a much higher overhead than storing
> the text in ASCII.

Of all the things in the demo this one had the most effect for me.   
Seeing the complete text of "Bleak House" in a tiny picture and being  
able to zoom in and out indefinitely just seems so extraordinary.   
But yes, you technically only need the text, the vectors of the  
letters are in the font in the OS.  You could store the font with the  
text.  But the zoomed out view effectively uses all the vectors of  
every letter in the book, they must store different sized bitmaps,  
thumbs if you will, I don't think you could render a whole book that  
size in real time.

> One has to ask: does a non-innovator and market debasement like
> Mickeysoft *deserve* to acquire technology like this. I can
> understand the speaker's apparent dischord with working at Microsoft
> but at the same time receiving an appreciative applause from a
> geek-filled audience.

I think the question is also what is MS going to do with it?   
Microsoft spends a lot on R&D but where are the results?

Just what sort of processing power does it require, he seemed to be  
saying that the main grunt work is done on the server.

--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request

Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961