Category Archives: Photography

July 16, 2009

Paris, the Visual City

By Mok Oh
More Paris

Paris shot from inside a car

More often than not, I find that a typical field of view of a camera is not enough.  Using my iPhone 3GS, I cannot help but create panoramas and mosaics to get a wider field of view or to tell a “story.”

I am visiting Paris on a biz trip and below are some examples of mosaics I shot using AutoStitch app on my iPhone.  If you have not been to Paris yet, two words for you:  You must.  It is such a visual city with incredible amounts of beautiful sites all around.

Rue du Nil, Paris.

Ghosts walking on Rue du Nil, Paris.

Preparing for some car-mounted photography in Paris

Preparing for some car-mounted photography in Paris

Dinner in Paris

Dinner in Paris

Paris

Paris

7 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in panorama, Photography

July 13, 2009

AutoStitch iPhone App

By Mok Oh

I wanted an app on the iPhone that stitched mosaics/panoramas on the iPhone without having to off-load anything.  So, I searched the App store for “panoramas” and found a bunch, and tested them.  I found three apps that I liked:

  1. AutoStitch
  2. Pano
  3. PanoLab

My clear favorite was AutoStitch, since it seemed to be the easiest to use.  All I had to do was to select a bunch of photos that I took for a panorama, throw them in a “bucket,” and then click “stitch.”  After crunching away, it created some pretty awesome stitched mosaics.  All photos that you see posted here are stitched using AutoStich.  Definitely try it out.

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in panorama, Photography, post processing

July 9, 2009

What About the Inside?

By Mok Oh

About a year ago in 2008, I had the privilege to speak in front of the Where 2.0 2008 audience.  The topic was titled, “What About the Inside?” (Online video link here.)  I’m bringing this up again since the question is still valid — in some sense much more valid now than before.  What was the context?  It was a question meant not only for the Where 2.0 audience, but also meant for the GIS, mapping, GPS, 3D/2D imaging, government/civic, architectural and urban planning, and any community of people who were doing any work that gathers information and interacts with interior places and spaces we live.

The premise was that we have an unnatural bias towards mapping the outside spaces more so than the inside.  Perhaps it has some historical significance, where outside spaces were the final frontier.  Well, that’s no longer true, since much of the earth’s outdoors has been mapped, explored, marked.  GPS, satellite and aerial imaging, smart software algorithms (e.g. image registration), and the Moore’s Law definitely changed the landscape of how we can gather information for the outside.  Now we even have ground-level imagery from Google, EveryScape, etc., and we can zoom around places virtually.

But what about the INSIDE spaces?  I surely don’t want to stop at just the entrance to a place I want to visit.  I want to go INSIDE!  Perhaps the right question is: How can I experience of the inside spaces of every interior space I’d like to visit?  Yeah, it’s a big question.  And in this context, by “I,” I mean for every single person who uses the internet.  There are definitely issues such as privacy, no GPS, no aerial photos, multiple floors/levels, etc. that question existing technologies and solutions, since they don’t seem to “map” that well for the interiors.

Please check out my Where 2.0 2008 presentation video and I would love to hear your thoughts.  And below is the clip of an EveryScape eye-candy commercial.

5 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in maps, panorama, Photography

July 1, 2009

Flash Making a Difference in Panoramic Viewing

By Mok Oh

In my mind, panorama viewers — just the viewer part — were one of the biggest hurdles in making panoramas more prevalent on the web (pls read Thoughts About Panoramic Photography (part 2) ).  Even if you have an eat-your-heart-out-Ansel-Adams panorama shot, if you couldn’t share it on the internet then you’re screwed.  And unfortunately, people are not trusting of plug-ins or standalones – it had to just work (I will talk about that in a bit).  If you had to download anything, then the chances of someone seeing your content are slim.

I believe one of the first, if not the first, commercial/consumer panorama viewer was QuickTime VR by Shencheng Eric Chen.  He published a paper in 1995 in SIGGRAPH describing QTVR. Another notable is Helmut Dersch, the creator of Panorama Tools in 1998.  Focusing on just the viewer part, he had a PTViewer which was java based.

Unfortunately, neither QuickTime VR nor Java had (and even the present tense “has”) the penetration to enable users to view the panoramas.  (If 1 in 3 or 4 cannot view your content on the web, it looks broken.)  Check out Rich Internet Application Statistics page — got some pretty wonderful numbers there.

Now let’s talk about Flash and how it made a difference.  I will go as far as how it has changed the (panorama) world.

I remember the early days of Flash when it was mainly meant to be a vector animation and viewing tool. And slowly, but surely, version after version, it started to morph itself into a much more versatile language for photos and videos. (Wikipedia rocks — found the history of Flash releases.)  Once Flash Player version 8 came out in late 2005 with an ability to affine warp photo textures, that got a few smart folks working on Flash-based panorama viewers.  I found one of the first viewers here.  (If you can find more, PLS comment!)  Just so that I am clear, by panorama viewer, I mean correct perspective warping, not those cheesy viewers where straight lines are all sinusoidal and sh!t.

First Flash Panorama Viewer (?)

First Flash Panorama Viewer (?)

So, what did this mean?  With Flash Player penetration of ~95%, that meant most people could view the panoramas and hence brought the content/media to the realm of “mainstream!”

Believe it or not, this has changed our world.  Thank you MacroMedia for that small innovation that made a difference.

7 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in panorama, Photography

June 30, 2009

Mobile Reality Demo

By Mok Oh

I was privileged enough to be a part of a panel in Mobile Reality at the Where 2.0 Conference this year, chaired by Brady Forrest.  Here’s the short description of the panel:

“An emerging class of smartphones including location-based services and persistent data connections are lenses by which we can effectively view data layers atop physical space. What was once only available from tethered desktop computers is now possible from pocket-sized companion devices that travel with us. We are seeing examples of this in their earliest incarnations – social networking, gaming, reference and commerce.

Opposed to looking far into the future, this panel looks at examples of this technology in use and available today to consumers on a variety of smartphone platforms, including the Apple iPhone and Google Android. Panelists will provide short demonstrations of this technology, followed by a topic discussion and Q&A.”

The reason for sharing this is to show you EveryScape’s initiatives towards mobility.  I believe EveryScape has one of the coolest and most useful visual platforms around (in my unbiased opinion), and you can see a glimpse of what’s being worked on in the video below (starting at the 2:3o mark).

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in 3D, Mobile, panorama, Photography, post processing

June 30, 2009

The Era of Post Processing (part deux)

By Mok Oh

I’ve opened up a can full of thoughts and ideas with my last blog on Post Processing.  So, imagine this:  What if you can create a 3D model out of any image?  What would you do with it?  How would you use it and for what?

This is work I did at MIT with Max Chen and Fredo Durand many years ago.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Photography, post processing

June 29, 2009

On Top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa

By Mok Oh
On Top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa

On Top of the Leaning Tower of Pi

Here is a panorama I took a few years ago.  From my last blog, where I commented on the state of the publishing and sharing of panoramas, I finally gave up on trying to find a website that does everything I want and ended up publishing my own using a hosting service.  Either click on the image above or here.

I think the image is powerful and wonderful, and as close to being there with the current state of consumer technology.

Comments welcome!

2 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in panorama, Photography

June 27, 2009

Thoughts about Panoramic Photography (part 2)

By Mok Oh
The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy.

A Panorama of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy.

FRUSTRATION is the word that comes to mind today.  I spent most of my Saturday trying to figure out if there is an easy way to publish and share my panoramas (as a common user, not a techie).  As anyone would do, I first searched for my “YouTube for Panoramas” sites and found a bunch.  After getting accounts and trying most of these webistes, I found the whole experience difficult and frustrating.  Perhaps my bar was too high in comparing them to YouTube or any other video serving websites.  Perhaps things are different for panoramas.  Perhaps it’s too much to ask…

On second thought, NO.  I shouldn’t have to lower my expectations for panoramas — they’ve been around as long as photography and videos!  I think the problem is that the panoramic community is not rising up to the challenge of making panoramic medium as common as videos or photographs.

Here’s what I want at a high level:

  • Acquisition – Taking panoramas should be as easy as point-and-shooting with a digital camera.  I do believe there are ways to simplify this.
  • Post Processing – Stitching, image processing, tone mapping, etc. should be easy as a drag-and-drop, and have access to “pro” features for those who want/need finer control.  I do believe this part has made much progress thanks to many innovative minds.
  • File Formats – To a common user, this should be as understandable as a “JPEG.”  My mom knows what a JPEG is, but she doesn’t know what an equirectangular JPEG is.
  • Viewing – What happens when you double click on a JPEG?  I want that for my panos.
  • Publishing – YouTube, Flickr, Picasa…
  • Sharing – YouTube, Flickr, Picasa…

I absolutely don’t think this is problematic.  It can be done.  In fact, much of the work has already been done.  So, why haven’t this happened yet?  Is there not enough demand?  Not enough cash, incentives or investments in this field?  Are there no business models or economics to make this a fruitful endeavor?

My guess is that we, as panorama community, need to make the process — from Acquisition all the way to Sharing — easy as 1-2-3 so that my mom can do it.  Let’s not make it into some esoteric art form that only a few can do.

6 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in 2.5D, panorama, Photography

June 26, 2009

3D Photoshop-ery!

By Mok Oh

Recently I wrote a blog about panoramic photography and about post processing.  I found this related video above which was a part of my research in collaboration with Max Chen and Fredo Durand at MIT around 2000.  This was the panorama that I took of the Omni Parker House Hotel mentioned in this post.  This was created from a single panoramic image.  I will certainly write more about this topic, but I want to drive home the fact that post processing of photographs is not limited to pixels and colors — geometry is certainly a part of it.  Case and point — we live in a three-dimensional space and photos are projections of that captured light.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in panorama, Photography, post processing

June 25, 2009

The Post-Processing Era of Photography

By Mok Oh

The art in photography used to depend heavily on how and when the photographer captured the light into the film during the photo shoot. I remember counting down the number of shots I had left in my 35mm film, painstakingly developing my black and whites, and using the negatives to create the positives. From acquisition to seeing the image, it took forever. And only after seeing the images (which may be days after the shoot) could you know what you’ve done wrong.

These days, the art in photography depend heavily on the science of post processing. (Can you say Photoshop?) Digital SLRs can pack in tens of mega pixels, at multiple frames per second, at a higher dynamic range (i.e. RAWs), and your instant-gratification desires are gratified. When in doubt, take more photos. And to get that perfect image, you “Photoshop” them or post process using your favorite tool or technique. If you capture enough light, you can (theoretically anyway) recreate and reproject the rays of light from the past to the present.

The quality of photography became directly related to the quantity of photography. I don’t think this is bad at all. The medium has changed — it has become more complex and more expressive, I think (I’m definitely not a “purist”).

So, what type of post processing am I talking about? Take a look at this video above let me know what you think — it was created from a single photograph.

19 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in panorama, Photography, post processing

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