Dr. Richard Szeliski, principal researcher at Microsoft Research who developed the technology with Noah Snavely and Steven Seitz of the University of Washington said, Photosynth will take collections of images, analyse them for similarities, and then display them in a reconstructed 3D space.

"The system builds a 3D model just from a raw collection of photographs," BBC quoted Dr. Szeliski as saying.

He said the technology worked by scanning collections of photographs, which could be taken from different cameras at different times.

"It picks out distinctive features in each image and cross-references them against the other photographs, checking for similarities. This allows it to pinpoint a feature’s 3D position and to also calculate where the position of the camera would have been when the picture was taken. Basically, it is just a geometry problem. You are simultaneously adjusting the position of the camera and where those little pieces of images are until everything basically snaps together," Dr. Szeliski said.

He said the system will allow users to see photos from any angle, click on specific photos, zoom in or out of a feature, and see where snaps were taken in relation to other images.

The technology should be available for use later this year, and Photo-sharing websites were expected to be its early-adopters, he said.

"I think the photo-sharing websites will be early-adopters of this technology. Wherever people share photos, instead of just seeing a gallery of unorganised photos, now you can pull everyone else’s photos together and make a rational sense out of it," he said.

"The technology will almost certainly be web-based, and people should be able to run the application later this year. Within the next year we hope to see this in wide usage," he added.

The other applications, Dr Szeliski said, would be for the tourism and the property industry. Visitors can take a virtual tour of an entire city, while walk through the lobby of a hotel and get a feel of the real thing, he said.

The technology will be unveiled at this week’s Siggraph 2006 conference in Boston.