Insider Brief:
- Canadian startup Odyssey3D brings Toronto Universities into the Metaverse, creating 3D Virtual Tours of its campuses.
- Odyssey3D has worked with various businesses and educational institutions to help them leverage 3D Virtual Tours.
- Marco A. Fiola, the Principal at Glendon Campus of York University, says that 3D Virtual tours are no longer a ‘nice to have’ but an absolute ‘must have’ for all institutions.
PRESS RELEASE — TORONTO/Sept. 7, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — York University’s Glendon Campus is the most recent campus to go digital with a 3D Virtual Tour of their campus. It was produced by Odyssey3D at the start of the year and is getting finalized by the university staff to embed more content. Anyone can now visit the full campus virtual tour here.
Odyssey3D was one of the first companies in Toronto to collaborate with the Silicon Valley 3D giant — Matterport and helped bring their tech to Toronto in 2016. Since then Odyssey3D has worked with various businesses and educational institutions to help them leverage 3D Virtual Tours. You can learn more about Odyssey3D and how they help institutions here.
3D Virtual Tours create immersive walkthroughs of a space that allows visitors to self-navigate from anywhere in the world 24/7, via their computer, smartphone, and even a VR headset. There are powerful features within the 3D Virtual Tour that help make it a realistic experience, such as the Dollhouse View and the embed feature.
Marco A. Fiola is the Principal at Glendon Campus of York University and he states that “3D Virtual tours are no longer a ‘nice to have’ but an absolute ‘must have’ for all institutions.”
York University’s Schulich School of Business and Lassonde School of Engineering were one of the first to implement a 3D Virtual Tour when they partnered with Odyssey3D in 2019. They successfully completed the 3D Virtual Tour of the Seymour Schulich Building in a few weeks.
It became evident when the pandemic hit that what York University started by getting a 3D Virtual Tour was the creative solution campuses and students needed moving forward. Odyssey3D then worked on the Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building and The Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence in 2020 to create 3D Virtual Tours of their campuses.
“This award-winning building creates a unique and inspiring space for students to gather, meet, work, and have amazing experiences, and [this] can only come to life when you visit it. Given current situations that made visiting impossible. The next best thing [is] the virtual reality experience created by Odyssey3D,” says Professor Andrew Maxwell, the Bergeron Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering.
In December 2021, Odyssey3D was tasked by Eric Mézin the Executive Director at York University’s Glendon Campus to “make Glendon stand apart from the rest”.
Odyssey3D not only created a 3D Virtual Tour but also captured stunning aerial views of the beautiful campus that were embedded into their 3D Virtual Tour using the embed feature.
The embeds (also known as Mattertags) allowed Glendon to add easter eggs all over the 3D Virtual Tour with valuable information that assists visitors who navigate through the tour, making this tour as interactive as possible! Similar to what one would expect when physically visiting a campus.
Thanks to Odyssey3D’s work with York University, these campuses can now place their visitors in the driver’s seat as they easily hop from one corner of the campus to another, gliding seamlessly through all the buildings and classrooms without being there physically. This accessibility allows students and staff with disabilities to easily see and plan a route to and from lectures. The university can now attract prospective students from anywhere with a 3D virtual tour of the campus 24/7.
“If you are looking to give people an advanced view of your facilities and your university. I strongly recommend that you look at how Odyssey3D can make the virtual come to life,” encourages Prof. Maxwell.
More universities, including The University of Toronto, are working with Odyssey3D to make their campuses digitally accessible. Restrictions have almost completely been lifted in Canada but regardless of the pandemic status, the need for 3D Virtual Tours still remains.
If you’re an educational institution that is looking to take advantage of modern technologies and create a digitally accessible campus, please visit https://www.odyssey3d.ca/education to learn more about how Odyssey3D can take your campus into the metaverse!
Contact:
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416–884–2167
SOURCE: Odyssey3D
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