In 1993-4, my final year at University of Colorado, I created a prototype to derive 3D computer models from photographs using AutoCAD 10 and AutoLISP. A demo of PhotoSynth at TED2007 lead me to wonder if someone had hacked my brain. blog 
TED blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth How PhotoSynth can connect the worlds images: March 2007 at TED2007
I imagined triangulated cones of vision derived from the geometry in photographs to simplify digitizing the world. A moment in Blaise Agüera y Arcas's talk still hits me as if it were my own memory, it so closely matches the way I had visualized what my code was doing: 4m03s
Triangulated cones of vision
Notre Dame reconstructed
I've retyped the Introduction and Conclusion from my 1994 paper below. Tooting my own horn, I'm especially pleased to have this prediction of future automation in writing.
## Introduction
Although three dimensional computer models serve many useful purposes their creation remains difficult especially when created from poorly documented existing objects or buildings. Generally, one must directly measure the objects to be modeled, then enter the measurements into a computer aided drafting (CAD) system with a mouse or digitizing tablet. Direct measurement is often difficult and inaccurate when the object is intricate, very small, or very large. Photogrammetry, a technique of obtaining measurements from photographs, offers an alternative to direct measurement for the generation of three dimensional models.
The purpose of this project is to create a suite of tools to derive three dimensional computer models from photographs.
## Advantages of Photography
First, most contact with the object is unnecessary because one generates the model from photographs, very useful for particularly large, small, or delicate objects. Second, photography is very general. One can take pictures of buildings as easily as furniture. One could use the same tools for producing models of objects of dramatically different scales. Whereas in direct measurement, one must have different tools for different scale objects. Third, there is potential for photogrammetric techniques to be completely automated.
[snip]
## Conclusion
Since its early devleopment, perspective has involved measurement. The techniques used here expand on this relationship to generate computer models from photographs. The current implementation is probably no more convenient than direct measurement, nor any less time consuming. It is also not particularly useful for organic objects. Nonetheless, it generates models entirely from photographs. No special cameras, drafting tablets, nor other specialized equipment are required, except a computer. It is equally useful for large and small scale objects. It also offers the possibility of completely automating photogrammetry, should artificial intelligence techniques become clever enough to recognize rectilinear shapes in photographs.
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Reconnecting with this work again in part because of what Ward is doing with solid modeling and 3d printing. See Solid Programmers
Nicéron, Jean François, La perspective curievse, ou, Magie artificielle des effets merveilleux : de l' optique ... la catoptrique ... ladioptrique .., 1638
source
The few years in the early 90s in which I was immersed in history of perspective, I dug deeply into images similar to this one from 1638, attempting to bring them to life by animating them through transformations from two dimensional constructions into their three dimensional subject matter.
To the untrained eye, there is just a pile of triangles. The human figures hint at the three dimensional modeling at work in the two dimensional constructions. The three dimensional geometry of perspective is the exact same geometry of surveying. The math is reversible. But limits of the page and of the costs of printing images relative to the costs of printing words emerge over history to limit what can and has been expressed.
My friend writes, We are selling my mother's house. The Realtor had a 3D model created for the layout.