The view from a zeppelin that wasn't

One of those curious chains of events, this. First, go fly a kite. A nice strong puller.

Next, affix a box-brownie with one of these newfangled radiometric controllers spavined and bodged onto it. Loft the whole assembly and take many photographs, thus:



Next, get hold of Microsoft's Photosynth (it's free). Feed your lithographs into its leafy maw and crank the handle for a while. The Photosynth mechanisms stack your pictures in a virtual 3D image stack that you can subsequently navigate through, zooming and whatnot as takes your fancy. Here's the 'synth' of the kite photos: voila, the view from a dirigible that never flew over my local surf beach!

It's nifty for small studies and large buildings, too.