Turning old photos into spatial photos on Apple Vision Pro
One tap in Apple Photos adds a third dimension to any picture.
- Answers
- Can you turn old 2D photos into 3D spatial photos on Apple Vision Pro?
- Topics
- Vision Pro · apple · people · photo
- Full article on willem.com
- https://willem.com/en/2024-09-10_i-see-dead-people/
Summary
In 2024 I used Apple Photos to convert decades-old digitised family photos into spatial photos with a single tap. Viewed on Apple Vision Pro they appear life size and three dimensional, and any photo works, no special camera needed.
Full text
Apple Photos can analyse any photo and infer depth information using image recognition. One tap creates a spatial representation that accounts for persons, objects and surroundings. There is no special requirement on the input: I used analogue family photos, digitised and tagged by my brother, some over 40 years old. On a flat screen the result looks much like the original. Projected on Apple Vision Pro's three dimensional display it changes completely: family members appear real size in front of you, and you notice details like how a jacket wraps around a body, how hair is touched by the wind and where somebody is looking. My brain stopped treating it as an image. I expect cameras with stereoscopic lenses and lidar to enrich spatial photos further, but the point is that it already works with the photos you have.