Tuesday, April 11. 2006

SuperTour.com: "a human level walking experience"

Marketing Shift offers an interview with the CEO of SuperTour.com a new travel website that offers "a human level walking experience" that incorporates the opportunity to book hotel rooms. It's built on a proprietary technology called

Panamorph and it allows users to rapidly create and edit photorealistic 3D scenes from 2D images in a fraction of the time and effort normally required to create 3D graphics. Panamorph’s visual linking technology then generates a digital walkthrough of hotel properties and their surroundings, delivering the next generation online travel buying experience to the savvy consumer. This technology has been in development for over three years.

There are but three locations available to explore: Miami Beach and Peurto Rico, with Vegas in preview mode. San Francisco, Boston and others are slated for later this year.

The app includes a photorealistic screen in the middle (Shockwave), a movable map (no idea whose technology, but it's Flash-powered.) You can navigate via the photo or the map. The app seems to link together static images because the movement in between views if fuzzy and disorienting to me. The company distinguishes itself from local search tools with this ground level view. They will not be able to do so for long...