An interesting post from Tim who is a GeoWeb 2006 in Vancouver. Great new blog by the way..
Tim notes comments from Microsoft about their plans to create 3D city models in a “different” way to Google. Just speculating but maybe the different approach its something to do with the fact that Microsoft also own a gaming platform ?
Ed, I think I noted something similar last year about Microsoft’s .
oops. Here’s the link: http://fantom-planet.blogspot.com/2005/08/scoff-if-microsoft-bought-esri-mimes.html
Here’s the link to the project: http://labs.live.com/photosynth/
To see pixels from photos sprinkled around a 3D world is wonderful, very impressive, truly new. They are not yet telling people how much metadata each photo needs: just a rough lat/long at one end of the scale, or a highly accurate orientation model at the other.
Reminds me of my own SnapMap: http://www.snapmap.com/