About

This project is a reimagining of a project I created in grad school at UW called PhotoCity. I have been maintaining an archive of PhotoCity data including photos and models at photocitygame.com.

PhotoCity was a game for reconstructing the world in 3D by collaboratively taking photos of as many places as possible from a many different angles. All these images from a variety of viewpoints could be used to compute 3D reconstructions using a computer vision technique called photogrammetry, specifically structure from motion. Players of PhotoCity would start seed models by taking an initial set of photos, and then incrementally grow and expand these seed models by taking more photos. In 2010, PhotoCity players were responsible for collecting over 100,000 photos of University of Washington and Cornell campuses over a period of six weeks, resulting in some of the largest contiguous reconstructions of the time. PhotoCity players also started seeds on five of the seven continents around the world.

Creating and playing PhotoCity changed how I look at and interact with the world, especially when I have a camera on hand (which is basically all the time). The game impacted other players as well, encouraging them to explore new routes and share reconstructions of their travels. This new project is an attempt to bring back what was special about that interaction and to see if there's a way to push it even further.

Contact

I'm Kathleen Tuite. You can find me on twitter (@kaflurbaleen) or email me at kathleen.tuite (at) gmail.com.