Spatializing Photogenic Density - Assignment 3 Final

This video shows the outcomes of a series of experiments involving Social Media, Yahoo! Pipes, and Photosynth. This explores the possibilities of creating new spaces and 3d objects through photogenic density, turning point clouds from Photosynth into useful information for design decisions, something which at the end i called a "photogenic viewing platform".  

All the photosynth point clouds were left as-is and no alterations were done to them. Rather than trying to make precise reconstructions, this experiment favoured the uncontrolled and unintentional in what makes up social media.

Setbacks during this experiment included problems with the Yahoo! Pipe. Ultimately a mixture of Pipes and direct rss feeds were instigating, weakening the "mashiness" of the Pipe.

Evil George - Progress

George Bush Model - With Background.

George Bush Model - Reconstructed: Octree Depth 6

George Bush Model - Reconstructed: Octree Depth 8

George Bush Model - Background Deleted Octree Depth 9

George Bush MAX Render - watertight

Evil George

George Bush - From Russells office

93% Synthy

_______________________________________________________________

Error Shots: A previous attempt to shoot an object under the same lighting condition yielded only 27% synthy.  The guess was the lack of color variation in the model taken, and the incompleteness of a 360o shoot through of the object. 

______________________________________________________________

Postscript: Another attempt was taken on another more detailed and more color varied object. However, the model only yielded a 59% synthyness. it was with daylight that was streamed in from one direction (from the window). The contrast between highly illuminated and dimmed down photograhs separated the synths, even when the photos were level corrected in Photoshop.

PhotoSynth Dos:

- choose object with more detail and panorama (+50% synthy)
- change the color levels in photoshop before synthing (+6% synthy)

PhotoSynth Donts:

- take object in a variable light condition (-25% synthy, ie the overshadowed face will not match)

PHOTOGAMMERTY: Experiment 1 - Photosynth

My interest in digital technologies has always been utilizing social media to mine for bottom-up information. Here is a short proposal for what Photosynth can do when you combine it with social media.

1. Extract "UNSW Library" Images from Flickr (Yahoo! Pipes)

2. Download RSS

3. Import Photos into Photosynth - We cannot get a full reconstruction of the whole building based solely on photos in Flickr alone, this collection is only 17% synthy. However we can determine that one angle or one facade is more photogenic than the other angles of this building, based on the density alone.

4. Identified that this facade is collectively the most potogenic for 'UNSW Library'.

Link to the Yahoo! Pipe