Just a quick one for last thing on a Friday. Here’s another reason to use Photosynth, Microsoft’s quietly brilliant 3D photo tool.

A while back the Netskills team helped me out with scoping a workshop for digital mapping/geolocation stuff and I mind-mapped it on a large whiteboard, recording the images on my phone.

The problem was it was difficult to interpret the images as the long shots were too low-res and the close-ups didn’t show enough of the big picture.

If I was less of a geek I would just have redrawn it but I shoved the pics in to Photosynth instead and Shazam!

Needs Silverlight to run

Great for:

  • Presenting workshop/conference flipcharts
  • Recording personal or collaborative brainstorms
  • Stitching together classroom displays

Tips

  • Take plenty of pictures, even for small displays (This one took 8 images)
  • Take a variety of shots. At least one long shot to get the whole scene, a handful of medium shots and then loads of close-ups
  • Make sure that the images overlap
  • Try to get the scene better lit than I managed