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Now users can superimpose a historic picture on a contemporary image of the same scene.
However, in order to obtain a more accurate image the photo should be taken from the same spot, using the same zoom level. Such possibility comes from new software developed for digital cameras.
The new technology was developed by Fredo Durand and Soonmin Bae at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, who teamed up with Aseem Agarwala of Adobe Systems in San Jose, California. They came up with a technique entitled visual homing.
It is worth mentioning that visual homing is a method used in robotics, where it sends a robot to a precise location.
The new software runs on a laptop that is connected to a digital camera. Their program compares the image from the camera to a preloaded historical scene and offers instructions on how to better adjust the camera's position and zoom in order to obtain the most accurate match, reports NewScientist.
Although the laptop is now used to run the software, in the near future the developers hope to make the program run right on the camera.