Photosynth is based on Photo Tourism, a research project by University of Washington graduate student Noah Snavely.

[4] Microsoft teamed up with NASA on August 6, 2007 allowing users to preview its Photosynth technology showing the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Each photograph is processed using an interest point detection and matching algorithm developed by Microsoft Research which is similar in function to UBC's Scale-invariant feature transform.

This process is known scientifically as bundle adjustment and is commonly used in the field of photogrammetry, with similar products available such as Imodeller and D-Sculptor.

The viewer resides on a client computer and maintains a connection to a server that stores the original photographs.

[11] On July 10, 2015, Microsoft announced that they are retiring the Photosynth Mobile Apps, removing them from their stores, and are no longer supporting or updating them.

Users have the option to geotag their digital shots on sites such as Flickr and then upload them to the online Photosynth web service.

Images uploaded on Photosynth give people the ability to seamlessly view landmarks, public spaces and objects from all sides.