This may be a bit late, but so goes the tide of the blogosphere.

A video from this year’s TED conference has been making the web-rounds recently, and it’s pretty freakin’ awesome.

It’s a live video demo of some new Microsoft technology called Photosynth. It’s partially a new way to organize and search for photos, but at about 3:50 the demo gets really incredible when it scans tagged Flickr photos to build a fully 3-D model of the Notre Dame cathedral.

They’ve got a very early beta demo available for download, if you’re running a decently powered Windows machine.

Until the final build is released, check this thing out and know we’re one step closer to having fully navigable 3-D trail maps at our keyboard fingertips.

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by Casey Schreiner

Founder and Editor of Modern Hiker, Author of "Day Hiking Los Angeles." "Discovering Griffith Park," and "Cloud Spotting." Walking Meditator, Native Plant Enthusiast.