I have spent the past month taking massive quantities of photographs in Brooklyn, for 3d reconstruction in Photosynth. Surprisingly, it’s not a bad tool for reconstructing 3d geometry. Noah Snavely’s Bundler and Arc3D are both more sophisticated of course, but while I’m learning a whole new way of working with 3d data, Photosynth has been useful for these initial tests. Microsoft do not allow you to download the original 3d file, but they seem to tacitly encourage others to do so, and I have been using Christoph Hausner’s SynthExport tool for that purpose.

Here is a reconstruction from photographs of the reflecting pool that is part of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument: click below to see it at Photosynth.net. (Install required.) I am rendering the point cloud file, which you can view by changing your view options in the menubar on the bottom right of the Synth viewer.