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Microsoft has announced a new collaboration with NASA designed to five users a 3D photographic tour of the space shuttle Endeavour before its launch this week. The new exhibit which uses Microsoft's [Photosynth technology][1] to create a three-dimensional environment with "views of shuttle Endeavour on the launch pad, interior and surrounding area of the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the return of previous flight Shuttle Atlantis atop a 747."
You'll need to download the [Photosynth viewer][4] to see the images (sorry Mac users, for now Photosynth is only available for Windows XP and Vista -- running either IE6 or IE7). If you don't meet the minimum requirements or if you'd just like to see an overview, there's a nice [video preview available][3] on the Microsoft Labs site.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas also gave a talk at the TED festival a while back that shows off some of the remarkable capabilities of Photosynth and SeaDragon, which you can see [here][2].
NASA says it hopes this joint project will lead to more collaborative initiatives with Microsoft. And Microsoft is no doubt hoping the same, especially since most recent NASA collaborations have been with rival Google, which gets some of its Google Earth data from NASA.
Also worth noting is that, near the end of the promotional video linked above, Blaise Aguera y Arcas says that Photosynth with soon offer features which allow users to stitch their own photos together.
Given that Photosynth relies on image data from a normal SLR camera, it might soon be possible for even you and I to stitch together some impressive 3-D tours, provided you take enough images.
[1]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/11/microsoft_sets_.html
[2]: http://labs.live.com/photosynth/blogs/Photosynth+At+TED+Conference.aspx
[3]: http://media.labs.live.com/photosynth/NASA/videonasa.html
[4]: http://media.labs.live.com/photosynth/nasa/default.htm
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