Microsoft’s name has never been synonymous with photography, visual imaging or innovative online applications. But its release Wednesday of Photosynth — a hybrid software/service that allows users to create 3-D environments by stitching multiple photographs together — suggests the company has more than a few cards up its sleeve.

In announcing the new technology, Microsoft said it has created “an entirely new visual medium.” In a video posted on Microsoft’s site, Gary Flake, a technical fellow at Microsoft,

said, “Photosynth, more than any other technology that I can think of, points us in the direction of what’s to come. Photosynth will mark the beginning of an vital transition in photography and the World Wide Web.”

To create “synths,” as Microsoft calls Photosynth’s creations, users take within 20 and 300 overlapping photos. The Photosynth software analyzes the collection for similarities and uses that documents to estimate where a photo was […]

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