CSI: NY Uses Microsoft Photosynth for Eye Candy, Scene Reconstruction

When I saw the demo of Microsoft Photosynth last year, I was amazed at the sheer concept behind it: taking photos from multiple sources, multiple users, multiple angles and multiple composition goals to create one 3D scene.

Fast forward to today, CSI: NY is about to show Photosynth in an entirely new light: using it for crime scene reconstruction. In tonight's episode, "Admissions," the lab uses Photosynth to piece together a scene from hundreds of pictures taken from mobile phones by students in a school gym.

CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker first saw Photosynth last July during a tour of Microsoft's research labs in Redmond, Wash. Zuiker makes regular visits to Redmond as part of an ongoing creative relationship between CSI and Microsoft.

Now I know what many of you (especially the MS haters) are saying: "damned product placement!" But let's think about this for a moment: Photosynth was created for exactly this purpose, to recreate a scene from source data regardless of the quality, quantity or mindset behind it.

This is a brilliant use of the technology to help the justice system get into the environment without pulling an entire team to the actual location. With today's "mobile mob" generation, like we saw with Cloverfield's "reality" of content creators, this feat is no longer a challenge.

Of course, we still have yet to see an actual consumer-accessible version of the Photosynth scene generation tools. It's due later this year.

"This is truly an example where branded integration can be as powerful, and potentially more powerful, than a 30-second ad," says Alan Gould, co-CEO of IAG Research, which measures the effectiveness of TV advertising. He speculates Microsoft may be "trying to build a coolness factor around a brand — and that takes years."

Source: USA Today