3D WorldViewer Everyscape Launches

Everyscape is a new service that takes 2D photos and 3D-fies them to create an immersive street-side experience (Radar post). Today they are launching their service with four cities (Boston, New York, Miami, and Aspen). Their technology will allow anyone with a decent camera and GPS can contribute; they're another example of crowdsourcing for geo data. The cities that Boston-based startup is launching with were primarily done by their employees, but that will not always be the case in the future.

Map pages of the site show a 3D'd streetside view in a Flash player that is in sync with a normal street map (See the image above). You can use either map to navigate a city. In the street-side views you move by clicking arrows and you zoom through the picture. In many of the 3D-ified images you can view 360 degrees. When you see a large orange marker (like a chess pawn) that denotes additional information is available about a location. The service has categorized business listings that are browse-able and searchable for each city. Once you find a business you can locate them on the maps -- handy if you aren't sure exactly where a store is. In time they will make money from businesses loading their buildings into the service and from ads. My biggest two biggest requests are KML import/export of the imagery (let me overlay my own data in the service and let me view some of their imagery on others) and bigger 3D'd images -- the pages should dominate the page, it is after all the cornerstone of their service (they are working on this).

The above image on the left is from Aspen Mountain and the image on the right is a custom map. There are other examples on the site where they have gone in buildings and show the floor plans as the secondary map. Being able to take in a custom map and rich imagery and show it in a useable way is powerful. Where Everyscape shines is when they go off the beaten path and let us tour small towns, buildings and other places that are uneconomical for many geo-data companies to do.

After the jump is a video of the service.