In February of this year, Microsoft acquired a company called Seadragon Software. Since then, Microsoft has been working Seadragon's imaging technologies into its own projects and Photosynth incorporates a good portion of them. According to Microsoft, Photosynth will allow users to zoom in, pan and fly through any photo or 3D scene without hiccups or pauses -- no matter if a photo is 1 megapixel or 1 gigapixel. Microsoft claims "scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution."

Another very interesting and potentially powerful feature of Photosynth is its ability to "DNA" and recognize photos featuring distinct similarities. Microsoft claims that Photosynth will allow users to take a picture of an object, have Photosynth analyze it, and automatically find information about it online. For example, if a user was on a trip and took a picture of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, they could import it and have Photosynth correctly identify the image as the Petronas Towers and automatically do an Internet search for information on the towers.