The View Finder Project is worth a look. I first read about it at David Warlick’s blog; go there first. Then, the video gives a great demonstration of the concept.

After reading the blog and viewing the video, Photosynth immediately comes to mind. Blaise Aguera y Arcas showcased the technology at TED in 2007. However, the View Finder project extends the possibilities.

All of this is contained within the links above, but for a convenient, if not confusing summary, the first step is to scrape Flickr (or ostensibly, any photo sharing website) for photos; those photos are spatially analyzed to determine the perspective from which they were taken. The photo can then be accessed via a spatially aware interface; this creates a photographic montage overlay of the given location. Photosynth accomplishes that.

View Finder extends the capability to match the perspective of a picture to that of a sketch up recreation of the location within Google Earth. The result? Using Google Earth, we’ll be able to “browse” around every structure on Earth (that’s has a sketch up counterpart) and see it in photographic detail as comprised of the pictures taken from the given perspective and shared via the internet.

Confused? Comment and I’ll try to answer ;-) Or, watch the View Finder concept video again ;-)