Almost a year ago I wrote about the new Microsoft Photosynth technology, calling it The coolest photo technology I’ve ever seen. I still think that. Dammit! How much longer do we have to wait for a public release? Seriously this is Microsoft’s main problem - they… take… too… long… to… do… anything. Let’s have it already!

Anyway, here is a neat demo of the technology as applied to the Space Shuttle. You need to follow this link to go and actually check out the image collection.

For Endeavour’s historic launch on August 7th, 2007, Live Labs joined forces with NASA to provide a Photosynth tour of the shuttle from vehicle assembly building to the launch pad. Thousands of photos intertwine to provide three dimensional, 360 degree perspectives of one of human kind’s greatest innovations.

Sorry, in the following video the sound is off from the people’s mouths as they are talking, but if you want to download the 98MB original you can do that here instead.

Here is another fantastic video demonstration of the platform from the 2007 TED conference.

Oh, and don’t forget they’ve got a bunch of other photo collections besides the Space Shuttle.