David Gedye walks us through a first look at Photosynth 2.0. This new update gives you a far more stitched and '3D model' look than past Photosynths through four different types of guided paths. The compute to create these synths is considerable, especially for large collections, so Photosynth 2 now uses Azure to do the heavy lifting. Photosynth 2 collections also are more touch friendly so you can touch to navigate more easily than in the past on touch devices.

You can view a selection of these new synths and start making your own at Photosynth.net/Preview. I had a chance to play with Photosynth 2 over the weekend. I've made a hobby of collecting photos from Apollo missions to the moon and I wanted to try loading these 45 year old images into Photosynth just to see what it would do. You can view all my Photosynth 2 collections here, below are a few of my favorites.

Earth rising on the horizon of the moon.



Collection of 14 images from surface of the moon. Press M on the keyboard to see the track the camera choose.



Boulders on the surface of the moon.



Descent.



Taking soil samples.



What it looks like to kick over a big rock on the moon.



Collecting samples.



Coasting over craters.



One full orbit (#28) from Apollo 17. Click M on the keyboard to see the track of the camera, and then click C to view the images relative to each other. Use your mouse wheel to zoom out and see the arc of the orbit.



Family photo that Charlie Duke left on the moon. Zoom in with your mouse wheel or with fingers on a touch device.



Here I downloaded a series of images of the Sun and selected wall in Photosynth 2.



For more Photosynths of the moon, sun, and my kid's Lego sets, see my preview page.