Reader JV passed me a link to Microsoft's amazing Photosynth technology, and I'm practically speechless. The video below shows how it works, and how it can be used.
The possible uses for this technology are endless and almost incomprehensible, especially when combined with a tool like Google Earth (or Microsoft's other Live software).
To make it truly compelling, they will need to pack the images into the skins of some gaming engine so one can stroll/fly around reconstructed 3d areas. The way the demo works now is kinda neat, but you can only go to static points where there is a known image. In the future I expect to be able to pause between known camera shots and see the computer rendered combination of several shots to present a perspective than doesn't actually exist in the raw data.
I hope, one day, to be able to download a movie file from my digial camera and process a working 3d environment of my home, for example. Realators could provide vertual open house walk throughs via the www.
Soon we will have 3d reconstructions of whole citys. It shall be neat.
I predict: within 24 months, the term "augmented reality" will have become another annoying buzz word appearing in the marketing materials of products that are only remotely related to its original meaning.
This reminds me of a project I read about where Berkeley reserachers drive a truck down the street snapping pictures, and then feed all the pictures into a program that makes a 3D model of the blocks that were "scanned" by the truck.
And there are programs out there, like this one, that create 3D models from just one photograph. Not perfect, of course, but a lot better than you might guess.