Vacation Snapshots Become 3D Models

Researchers at the University of Washington, TU Darmstadt in Germany, and Microsoft Research have an interesting project: they're building 3D models of landmarks out of vacation snapshots. By downloading many pictures from Flickr, they can compare all the different views and have a computer construct 3D surfaces by comparing all the photos, essentially interpolating what surface could offer all the images. There is a lot of sorting, as only a small portion of the photos of any given subject will work for the method. Check the link above for an abstract of the paper and some examples of the imaging, or see this New Scientist article for a more easily digested explanation.