Photosynth

During the TeachMeet in Lutterworth (#tmm11 on Twitter) we quickly looked at a Photosynth of La Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona. There was a lot of interest in Photosynth, so hopefully these user notes will help you get started.

Photosynths are all managed at www.photosynth.net

Photosynth and Windows Live Accounts

Photosynth user options

In order to create Photosynths you need a Photosynth account – for that you’ll need a valid Windows Live ID (hotmail, mspassport etc).

The Create Account option gives you quick access to a link to create a Windows Live ID

From that point you can then create a Photosynth account which you link to the Windows Live ID.

When you’ve followed the simple steps to create the Windows Live account and linked it to the Photosynth account, you can then sign in to Photosynth

When you’ve signed in you have the chance to create a Bio page which you can edit at any time.

Here’s mine – I must get more creative.

Let’s see what’s involved. Today (24th Feb) is the first sunny day for a while. Our office is very close to a motorway bridge, so let’s see what we get near Junction 20 of the M1. It’s not very picturesque – what can Photosynth do?

Get the pictures

Here’s my simple instructions – when shooting for photosynths, just make sure there’s plenty of overlap between pictures. Much fuller instructions are available from the Photosynth team on this video

Life is so much easier when the pictures are all in one folder – with useful names. So use the ‘Import pictures ..’ option

Use the ‘Import settings’ changes before you set the picture tag.

The really useful thing about this approach is that your files automatically go to a useful place – and they have useful names!

Making a photosynth – with Photosynth

Install the Photosynth package on your PC. (Note this may require Silverlight and .NET framework to also be installed – you may also need full administration rights at your own PC to do this).