Pixiq

What if you could visit any place on the planet - virtually?

What if you could take photographs or video of great places without actually going anywhere? What if you could bring those places to you - virtually? Could this be possible?

Millions, if not billions, of images are taken every day. Many places are recorded by still cameras, video cameras, cell phones, security cameras and other recording devices. Flickr and other similar collections contain millions of images of millions of subjects. Places such as the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls or the Eiffel Tower are being photographed everyday from different vantage points with different devices and by millions of different people. There are security cameras that are constantly turned on to record millions of locations. We live in a world that is constantly being recorded.

If that is the case, it would be conceivable to somehow recreate almost any environment with images stitched from the combined photo archives of millions of picture takers throughout the world. I believe that we should be able to utilize at least a large number of the images taken at a given place and through image stitching and with 3D data we should  be able to reconstruct the space and the view from nearly any position, any camera angle and any distance including macro views of objects.

If this is possible, it might also be possible to incorporate video into this same scenario so that we can reproduce at least a portion of the motion of a given place. It might also be possible to recreate any lighting situation simply by tracking the times of the day in which the images were shot. For instance, all of the images that were taken at 5:30 in the afternoon at a specific GPS location no matter what day would be stitched in real-time to present to the viewer a realistic and 3 dimensional reproduction of any one environment. Time of year, weather conditions and environmental data might also be part of the computer selection process for creating a virtual world that mimics the real conditions as close as possible.

While the concept may seem a bit off-the-wall and maybe a bit like a holodeck, there are at least a few companies that have been contributing technologies that will make this a reality. Google may have started the process with Google Earth and Goggle Maps.

GigaPan and Microsoft are two of those companies that have made significant strides in making virtual travel possible.

GigaPan produces a camera system for creating mega-gigabyte panorama images from a single off the shelf digital camera. Basically, the system uses a motorized mounting system that takes a series of hundreds of images of a scene and stitches them together into a huge panorama. This final image can be navigated by panning and zooming to allow the viewer to see any part of the image in greater detail.

Microsoft Photosynth is a software program that uses a massive input of images to recreate environments, which can also be presented as 3 dimensional scenes. The concept takes a vast number of images that have been taken by many people at different times and stitches them together to produce a total recreation of the scene from any angle and from any location included in the images. Vast image collections such as those found on Flickr could be used to produce the virtual space.

"Photosynth takes your photos, mashes them together and recreates a 3D scene out of them that anyone can view and move around in.

Different than static photos and video, Photosynth allows you to explore details of places, objects, and events unlike any other media. You can’t stop video, move around and zoom in to check out the smallest details, but with Photosynth you can. And you can’t look at a photo gallery and immediately see the spatial relation between the photos, but with Photosynth you can."

Source Microsoft

Of course, in my scenario, we could seamlessly travel through any number of connected environments unaware of the stitched maze of hundreds or thousands of images to get to the place we want to be. In other words, the total effect of any number of images of a given place would work together to produce a result that would be convincingly real and completely navigable when moving from virtual place to virtual place.

As this technology takes foot, people will be able to contribute personal environments that they create using their cameras that can be added into the total configuration of possible places using some kind of image based virtual world building software. Virtual visits with relatives and business people from other places will be commonplace as living rooms and offices are mapped. People will almost feel as if they are sitting in the same place. Places such as malls, parks and trails could be mapped into such a system.   

In order to create a more realistic experience, the use of touch and haptic technologies will let people feel the places in their virtual travels. With newer imaging systems and video, it might eventually be possible to incorporate any or all of the actual sounds captured from the original images. 

Imagine being able to travel on your computer to a place you have never been. Even better, imagine that you are standing in a space that is created from projected imagery. What you see in front of you looks like the real thing. Motion images are combined with other images of the same place to create a seamless multi-dimensional world. Every direction you look there is something to see. As you move through the scene, you find beautiful things that excite you. You see the possibility for taking a photograph and continue forward to find the vantage point to make the shot. The image you see through your virtual camera is actually made from a giant collection of images. You can feel good knowing that you are not actually using anyone’s image, but are using the input of millions of images that are reconstructing the scene in front of you. You are a new visitor with a virtual camera and a new perspective in this new environment just like you would be in the real world. You take control of the camera and take your shot which you get to keep. Your image returns to the database to continue the process as another virtual brick.

While this concept may seem too far-fetched, it is something that is becoming more and more possible as technology advances.

I can see this concept being useful for a large number of applications. Besides allowing anyone to go anywhere else, it could be extremely useful for teaching any number of subjects. It could be a great tool for teaching history and art and subjects like geography. It could be helpful in forming relationships with different cultures. As projected wallpaper, it could allow us to recreate new environments in our homes or offices. We could project any place into any space. The list of possibilities could go on and on. Wars would be fought more efficiently utilizing image constructed landscapes. Places destroyed by catastrophic events could be recreated virtually for the sake of reconstructing the real world. In the future, people could travel back in time to see the environments and places of the past.

Like any technology, it can be used for amazingly good things or it might also be used by evil minds. Are there negative implications to this concept? I would think yes.

I would like to stay positive and hope that we could control this technology for the best use.

Depending on the image data sets used, it may be possible to travel into hazardous places, into space or into microscopic worlds. For me this offers many new possibilities. The original image GPS data for any location could be used as current GPS data for police, fire and rescue purposes where the scene is reconstructed virtually from images previously collected in order to provide useful information for emergency evacuation and other situations. This would mean that buildings, airplanes and ships could be "image mapped" so that rescue workers could walk virtually through the spaces even though the actual environment is obscured by smoke, fire or darkness.

Besides allowing you to virtually shoot images of far off places, it just might be a useful tool for teaching photography.

For myself, I am partial to the real world.

© John Neel