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March 11, 2008
360 Cities Virtual Reality Project
I walk under this section of the Sobu and Chuo lines at least twice a week . The name of the station and surrounding area is Suidobashi. Located in the Kanda district of Chiyoda Ward, it is a lively and boisterous neighborhood. Beyond the tracks, standing at full attention, slightly left of center is the 43 story Tokyo Dome Hotel. I was surprised and delighted to find this photo of an area I know so well in the Tokyo section of the 360 Cities Virtual Reality Project.
The 360 Cities project makes use of Apple’s Quicktime VR and claims to be “the worlds fastest growing Virtual Reality network.” The site name would seem to suggest that panorama views of 360 cities around the world are on offer. But on closer examination, that claim becomes dubious. The photos are arranged sensibly by continent. North America and Asia feature seven and eight cities, respectively; Africa and South America each get one slot; Marshall Islands is the only “city” listed for Australia; while the remaining 25 cities are from Europe. That's far from a balanced representation. And the number of cities does not come close to 360.
But I'm not going to throw this site under the bus merely for a little over exuberance among the copywriters. Clearly 360 refers to degrees depicted in the photos. I, for one, happen to savor each and every one of those degrees while moving through these ever amusing panorama shots. It's kinda like crawling around in a little glass bubble. Though they only feature 43 cities, the site boasts that more than 5000 photos can be seen.
The Tokyo section alone has nearly 500 pictures. Some of them are quite stunning. I particularly like this photo of people standing under the cherry blossoms at Koshikawa Korakuen Koen. It seems as though panorama photos are continually being added to the Tokyo section, some as recently as last weekend.
Posted by scott at March 11, 2008 12:40 PM
Comments
Interesting idea, poorly produced. Of course Australia is a continent, but it is also a country. New Zealand, the Marshall Islands, Easter Island, whatever cannot be included in Australia. I like Australia / Oceania much better... (that's my email to them...)
It's a struggle to educate those who don't live in this part of the world!
Maybe you should join up Scott?
Posted by: San at March 11, 2008 01:16 PM
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