Photosynth

Microsoft Live Labs' 3D photo stitcher, a jaw-dropping demo in 2006, a website from 2008, switched off in February 2017

Shut down
19902026

Photosynth was a Microsoft technology and web service that analysed sets of overlapping photographs, worked out where each was taken and reconstructed the scene as a navigable 3D point cloud, later adding stitched panoramas. Grown from Noah Snavely's Photo Tourism research at the University of Washington and shown as a Live Labs technology preview on 9 November 2006, it launched to consumers at photosynth.net on 20 August 2008, gained iPhone and Windows Phone apps in 2011 and a new preview in 2013, and was shut down on 6 February 2017.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2006
  2. 9 November 2006 Launch
    Photosynth technology preview

    From Photo Tourism and Seadragon.

  3. 2008
  4. 20 August 2008 Launch
    photosynth.net opens to everyone

    Upload photos, get a 3D synth.

  5. 2010
  6. 2010 Feature
    Panoramas added
  7. 2011
  8. 19 April 2011 Version
    Photosynth for iPhone

    Panoramas by phone; Windows Phone followed.

  9. 2013
  10. 10 December 2013 Version
    New Photosynth technology preview

    Spins, walks, walls and panoramas.

  11. 2016
  12. 4 November 2016 Shutdown announced
    Shutdown set for 6 February 2017

    Offline viewer released for exports.

  13. 2017
  14. 6 February 2017 Shutdown
    photosynth.net decommissioned

    No data retained.

The site through time

Browse photosynth.net as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2017 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Microsoft 2006–2017 Founded Live Labs with the University of Washington; later Bing and Microsoft Research

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: On 4 November 2016 the Photosynth team said the site and services would be decommissioned on 6 February 2017 because, reviewing its portfolio, Microsoft found too little use to justify continued investment; users were given an offline viewer for panoramas and Tech Preview synths and told nothing would be kept after the date. The mobile apps had been withdrawn in 2015 and the last technology, the 2013 preview, had been folded into Microsoft Pix and Bing.

Our analysis: Photosynth was one of the great demos of the 2000s, and demos are hard to turn into habits. Building a synth took dozens of photos, patience and a Windows PC with Silverlight, and the result was something to look at once. Panoramas were easier but phones did those natively by 2012. Microsoft kept the research (it went into Bing Maps, Streetside and Pix) and closed the destination nobody visited.

History [edit]

Photo Tourism

Noah Snavely, Steve Seitz and Richard Szeliski's Photo Tourism work at the University of Washington showed in 2006 that hundreds of tourists' photographs of Notre-Dame could be placed automatically in three-dimensional space and browsed as a scene. Microsoft's Live Labs, with Blaise Agüera y Arcas (whose Seadragon deep-zoom company Microsoft had just bought), turned it into Photosynth, and released a technology preview on 9 November 2006 with a handful of collections, including Seattle's Space Needle and photographs from NASA. Agüera y Arcas's TED demonstration in 2007 made it famous.

The consumer service, photosynth.net, opened on 20 August 2008: upload a set of overlapping photographs, and the software worked out the camera positions, built a point cloud and let anyone fly through the "synth" in a Silverlight viewer. Within weeks it held tens of thousands of synths, from cathedrals to living rooms; National Geographic, NASA and the BBC used it, and it was built into Bing Maps. In 2010 it added stitched panoramas, in 2011 an iPhone app that made panoramas by waving the phone, then a Windows Phone app; in December 2013 a new technology preview did smoother "spins", "walks", "walls" and "panoramas" from ordinary sequences.

Decommissioned

The mobile apps were withdrawn in 2015, and on 4 November 2016 the Photosynth blog said the site would shut down on 6 February 2017: usage did not warrant continued investment, users should download their panoramas and Tech Preview synths with a new offline viewer for Windows and Mac, and no data would be kept. The original 2008-style synths could not be exported at all. The viewer code was released as open source. Its ideas moved on into Microsoft Pix, Bing Streetside and, later, everyone's photogrammetry apps.

The domain today

photosynth.net no longer resolves.

Similar projects

Picasa Everyone's first photo library 2002–2016 Picnik The photo editor in your browser, bought by Google and closed two years later 2007–2012 Panoramio The Spanish photo map Google bought for Google Earth and closed a decade later, taking millions of geotagged pictures off the map 2005–2016 ICQ The messenger that gave you a number 1996–2024 Skype The app that made calling the world free 2003–2025 Winamp It really whips the llama's ass 1997–2013

Sources [edit]

  1. Microsoft shoots for 3D multi-photo viewer CNET 9 November 2006 [archived]
  2. Microsoft launches 3D wonder Photosynth for consumers CNET 21 August 2008 [archived]
  3. A new spin for Photosynth Microsoft Research 7 January 2014 [archived]
  4. Microsoft to shut down Photosynth service on February 6, 2017, download your creations now Winaero 27 December 2016 [archived]
  5. Microsoft to shut down Photosynth service on February 6, 2017 MSPoweruser 4 November 2016 [archived]
  6. Microsoft Photosynth Archive Team 6 February 2017 [archived]

Last verified: 18 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).