Tag Archives: university

3D renders of cities created from thousands of Flickr photos; awesome!

Scientists from the University of Washington’s Graphics and Imaging Laboratory, with the help of over 150,000 Flickr users, managed to create 3D digital models of three different cities.  According to PopSci.com, “each video includes clusters of small diamond shapes, which represent each photographer and his or her vantage point.  ..  The team built a new algorithm that proceeds in two steps — first, by matching the photos by what they had in common, puzzle-style, and then by determining the scene and each photographer’s pose.”  One of the scientists, Steve Seitz: “This is one of the main intellectual challenges here.  We want to see how much of the city can be reconstructed from people’s tourist photos.”

Their next task: to create a 3D rendering of an entire city using at least one million photographs.  So keep taking pictures people, and upload them to your Flickr accounts.  Check out more 3D renderings the team is working on at their YouTube page.  Cool stuff, huh?

[Via Gizmodo; Popsci]

“Touchable Holography;” the future is coming

Researchers from the Shinoda Lab at The University of Tokyo have transformed the way holograms will be defined for years to come.  Gizmodo explains what’s going on here best in layman’s terms: researchers have essentially combined motion tracking, like you see in the Wii, with holograms, like you see on CNN, with ultrasonic waves.”  Just watch the video above as it explains it all visually with the truly amazing technology itself.  People, the holodeck concept is moving from fiction to reality, slowly but surely.

[Via Gizmodo]