Virtual tours provide new opportunities for businesses

A small Sandpoint tech company has ignited a buzz of interest in its 3-D visualization tool, getting calls daily from state tourism agencies eager to use the tool to promote tourism.

That boost in interest comes after GeoData Technologies, an eight-person firm, developed a 3-D virtual tour of Idaho’s key attractions. The online tool — at VisitIdaho.org — gives a visually realistic sense of flying over or around sections of Idaho, with hotels, resorts, golf courses, trails and other attractions displayed in detail.

The Idaho tourism tool does all that with high-resolution aerial photos and satellite images of terrain, all blended into a seamless landscape.

The extremely high-resolution aerial views of North Idaho were contributed by Spokane’s Avista Corp.

The GeoData tool in a Web browser allows one to fly through any area of the state, with detailed views of tourist attractions, hotels, boat ramps, golf courses and camping areas.

The Idaho use of GeoData is similar to what many people have already experienced with Google Earth, which provides 3-D panoramas of any spot on the planet.

GeoData’s CEO Mark Williams said his firm’s patented mapping tool, called SiteSeer3D, resembles Google Earth but with the added ability for businesses, chambers of commerce and other attractions to quickly add their own location features to the 3D map without needing special technology or technical skills.

As more and more cities, convention bureaus and regional tourism promoters create their own 3D maps, the result will be a richer, interactive system for highlighting recreational and cultural attractions and scenic destinations, Williams said.

For instance, Schweitzer Ski Resort can use the tool to showcase ski runs, lodge information and other local attractions, Williams said. Others already adding and creating their own detailed online 3-D map include the Coeur d’Alene Resort, the North Central Idaho Travel Association and the Crystal Gold Mine museum in Kellogg.

Anyone “flying” over the golf course at the Coeur d’Alene Resort in the Idaho tourism virtual world can click an icon leading to a page to reserve a tee time.

In the past month, after news spread that Idaho was testing the 3D tool, the Sandpoint firm has been contacted by officials in Arkansas, Utah and other states, Williams said. “We’re getting contacts from states or other tourism groups nearly every day,” he said.

The tourism-related use of the SiteSeer3D tool is GeoData’s newest but just the second successful application of the software. The first intended target group was real estate brokerages.

Launched in 2007, the SiteSeer3D software gives real estate firms a Web tool that integrates the vast amount of information sellers and buyers want to gather about property values, interior views, boundaries, resources, traffic patterns and other levels of map information.

So far, the real estate sector is easily the biggest customer base for GeoData, a private firm that doesn’t publish revenue figures.

Sales in 2009, all from real estate use, came to six figures, Williams said.

Realtors have discovered the tool simplifies the job of “driving” potential buyers through a local area. Instead of taking a car to roam neighborhoods, the GeoData realty tool lets the broker soar across terrain, highlighting properties or zooming down to show what the property looks like near ground level.

The SiteSeer3D tool allows for spatial searching. If someone wants to see just the homes in a city selling for less than $1 million and within a mile of a school, SiteSeer3D filters the map data to showcase just those properties.

“The GeoData tool is a powerful time-saving tool for us,” said Laura Cusenbary, marketing director for Prudential Steamboat Realty in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Her firm’s 50 or so brokers typically bring a buyer into the main office, where a large touchscreen monitor is used to showcase properties.

However, one SiteSeer3D feature — connecting users in different locations — hasn’t been widely adopted yet among the Steamboat Springs brokers, she said. Instead of sitting together, the broker would sit at an office computer and call the buyer. The technology allows the two users to take a virtual tour and see the same 3-D map.

“That’s something we just haven’t had success with,” Cusenbary said. The trouble is not complicated or difficult software, but the standard trouble of not-savvy users confronting issues of computer glitches, network troubles and other technical hurdles keeping the session from working correctly.

“We’re going to have a training soon to help our brokers use that option,” Cusenbary said.

A Boise Realtor, Jim Paulson, does exactly that. Paulson takes U.S. service members stationed overseas through “virtual realty” tours of Boise properties, Williams said.

The successes of computer 3-D visualization should evolve and create other uses by consumers, students, researchers and others, Williams predicted.

At some point the ability to merge 3-D software with social media will likely occur, and GeoData is already looking for ways to develop tools so people can share insights and ideas about places they know or want to learn more about.

One could see ways users of Facebook or the video messaging system Skype would send friends to a link with a virtual 3-D landscape where someone just went on a vacation. With a live one-to-one connection the traveler can show a friend or group of friends a 3-D tour of the landscape and show off points of interest, GeoData’s Jared Yost said.

“You can fly people to your favorite spot and show them pictures and even send video while in this immersive environment,” Yost said.

Cusenbary, for one, is convinced we’ll soon see many travel guides or skilled trip organizers using this tool it to help customers plan trips, prepare for vacations or share experiences with friends, all via computer data.

“Imagine wanting to know where you’re going to go on your honeymoon in France,” she said.

The travel agent would guide one through the itinerary, starting with a view of lodgings and then covering the tourist sites she’s picked for the rest of the trip, Cusenbary said.

“That would really provide travel agents a competitive advantage, in a time when they’ve had to struggle with people doing own booking over sites like Expedia,” she said.

“If I was a travel agent, I’d incorporate that in a heartbeat.”