New version of the panorama stapler Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE), future features

Updated free stitching panoramas ICE , about the previous version of which I once wrote . The technological base in this program is very advanced, the quality of the result is high, so the product deserves attention.
New features and improvements:

• Improved multithreading support.
• Support for 16-bit color depths at the input and output.
• A special template for a panorama shot in rows, optimizes the preparation of gigapixel panoramas and speeds up obtaining a preliminary result.
• Export panorama on the site Photosynth .

Export to the Photosynth site is not casual. Although the panorama is not a synth , it can be conveniently viewed with this instrument. This service has long been able to georefede, which will lead to the fact that not only synths will be located on the map , but also simple panoramas. Considering that soon the panoramas will be integrated in the street view mode (I wrote about this here ), this will provide the necessary content for displaying on maps. Therefore, what I was dreaming about here , will soon be available in some form in localities with street view coverage. For reference, an account on photosynth gives you 20 Gb of space to accommodate panoramas and synths.
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An example of a structural panorama. It is stated that the preliminary result on 300 frames was obtained in 3 seconds:



In addition, information is available on future ICE capabilities. In particular, we are talking about stitching panoramas based on the video sequence. The program analyzes the video sequence, selects the best quality overlapping frames and builds a panorama. It has long been an obvious and very useful opportunity.



It also talks about the possibility of improving the quality of the image based on the analysis of the video. It reminds me very much of super-resolution technology; if so, this is very cool. Super-resolution allows you to increase the resolution of the image due to the fact that at the entrance we have a lot of frames of one object made with sub-pixel shift relative to each other. When filming and it turns out. Those. It is enough to take a little video camera on the object and as a result, you can generate a sharper image, with details that we have not seen. However, it is possible that something about which it is said is not quite this algorithm, let's see.

References:

Ice
Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) (my previous version note)
Photosynth.net
Super-resolution (wikipedia)
Photosynth (wikipedia)
Buttery-Smooth Gigapixel Panoramas
ICE Is Now Synthy
TechFest 2010: Multi-Image Fusion Technologies Next Generation Image Composite Editor

PS It will be interesting to get rid of the small stitching test on the old and new versions of ICE and compare the results with Autopano 2.