Of SeaDragon and Photosynth

Last Friday I had my first placement visit from my Placement Advisor. It went well. Very well indeed. Not only from the point of view of my placement but it also turns out that my advisor is leaving his current job and moving to be the "enterprise" manager of the Uni. He also has contacts with Microsoft and was even in the meeting where Linda Hole tried to get hold of a MS Surface box for us to play with.

During my meeting with him we got talking about the Virtual Projects I am currently working on and when he went to talk to Andy about me they got talking about it all. And it seems that we may be able to work with MS on something after all. They recently bought up some software called SeaDragon. Which, if you haven't heard of it, is a technology that allows super fast streaming of data across a network no matter the amount of data you are handling. In basic it turns it is only downloading the data that can be seen on your screen, which is a fixed amount that will never ever change. This means that it can handle a huge collection of image files, for example, all high resolution and you can zoom in and out of them and scroll all about.



The video shows, incase you can't have audio or you haven't seen it, 800 high resolution images being streamed across a network at roughtly 500Kb/s (Bits not Bytes). That works out at, if the images were all 20MB in size (118 Megapixel images here), roughly 15.625GB. At it streams it pretty damn smoothly. To me, thats pretty special and my hat goes off to the guys that created SeaDragon.

However, MS have now bought this software and used it in their new product which is currently in development called Photosynth. This is, in my opinion, one of the best things MS has produced in a long time and if they market it right and release the program at the right price could be a killer app for photo professionals. I can see a multitude of ways to use it, which I won't divulge in case MS reads this and nicks them!

Basically Photosynth takes a whole host of images from an image library, Flickr for example. These images are all of the same thing. Lets say of the Eiffel Tower. It then looks at all these images and starts mapping them out in a 3D space so you can then move around a model of the subject in question and as you move over an area that has a photo it fades in and you can see the object from that angle. You can then move to another side and view another photo. Zoom right in to seem some detail and then zoom out and on to the next photo. It streams all the data of the net using the SeaDragon technology and thus makes it smooth and a pleasure to use. I personally think they should put in the ability to view a collage of all the different photos to create a 3D model that you can move around as at the moment you can only view one photo at a time. If they could try and map the photos to the 3D frame Pho creates that would be great.



So, Andy and I are looking at getting into contact with MS and seeing about getting our hands on Pho to play with it an maybe be one of the first Universities (or companies?) to use it for a practical use. Fingers crossed!

My personal touch for today is how to get around the blight that has stopped the non-US listeners of Pandora listening because we don't live within the US. And this is, globalPandora. It seems to be a touch slow, but that might be because I'm currently logged on to Last.fm at the moment. But it does indeed work, and with no adverts!

Of Web 3 and Digital Camera's

Andy has been looking at Web 3.0 stuff today. He tells me that we are going to move towards online desktops and applications. And that this is a good thing. I disagree at the moment. Broadband speeds are still too unpredictable, some people still don't have it. Until it has been rolled out across the country to everyone and the speeds are reliably in the 4mb region I can't see any practical use for online desktops and and full application suites.

Don't get me wrong, Google Docs and a few others are working very well indeed and they offer fast usage with reliable storage. But what's the point of putting it all together yet? But then I suppose progress has to start somewhere. And who knows, with the push of such things maybe it will make ISPs make their services better.

However, I must report something sad now. My Sony Cybershot DSC-P200 has broken. Somehow the screen has shattered. I shall blame it on Mother. So I've been looking at new camera's today and have pretty much decided upon the DSC-H9. Looks to have everything I want in a decent size gadget. How I am also looking at new phones (LG Viewty). So many things to buy, so little money. But that's an old cry from most of the people isn't it? Peace!

Of Fat and Work

Been back at work for just under a week now. Last week was as quiet as a grave so I didn't have anything to blog about. This week however everyone is back so it's work time!

Andy has asked me to start writing a case study on blogging for our project. Personally I'm going to write about how I feel about blogging and what I find it useful for. But how do you guys find blogging? Is it useful for reflection? Or do you just use blogs for a diary? Or maybe you just read them and not write one. Let me know! It would be extremely useful and interesting to see your thoughts.

Personally I've used it as a diary of my work placement as part of the assignment this year has been to keep a work log of everything. But I've also started to find it incredibly useful as a reflection tool. For example, when I've had a meeting I've blogged about how I felt about it. What was good what was bad. Then a few days later I've read the post and then reposted about the meeting. How I'm feeling about it after a few days to think about it all. It's interesting to see the differences and being able to comment back to yourself is great.

So there we are!

On a personal note, now it's time to lose the Christmas fat. Anyone else got a spare tyre? Still, that's what Christmas is all about isn't it? Eating yourself stupid till the point of feeling slightly ill?

Andy's Beard Watch Update: It's gone again! Every time I don't seem him for a couple of days it disappears. Maybe that's because it takes a couple of days to shave off with a diamond edged razor.