Sunday, March 11, 2012

Trail View: Street View for National Parks


It appears that Widdakay isn't the only one interested in creating a virtual,  Street View-style tour of hiking trails.  Nature Valley has sponsored a project called Trail View that does just that by connecting a complex camera system to a hiker's backpack.  They then stitch the images together into an interface that allows you to virtually hike through beautiful countryside.  So far they have the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and the Great Smokey Mountains.


This project is not as ambitious or technically advanced as Widdakay's project, which tries to do the same thing autonomously, so you don't need to have people hike every possible trail with cameras on their packs.  

The interface to the Nature Valley site is a bit hard to figure out, and the images are a bit low resolution, but still its fun to hike around the Grand Canyon a bit without leaving your desk. Take a look for yourself here.

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