Virtual Tour - Meenakshi Temple

Here is a virtual tour of the Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai. It takes a while to load but its totally worth waiting for - is very real and impressive.

There is a layout on the top left with the various places that are available in the tour and one can click on it and use the keys on the bottom right to navigate.

On the one side, it brings back fond memories (since there are people in the tour too, you might actually see someone you know !) and on the other side, it makes me happy that tourism in Tamilnadu is finally showing some marketing initiative. Anyone who asks me about India talks about Jaipur, Udaipur, Delhi and ofcourse Agra and at best, the only thing they know about the South is ayurveda from Kerala and very few people realise that Tamilnadu has a lot to offer too.

So, what is the technology behind it ?

Do you remember seeing panoramic photographs ? They are usually generated by stitching multiple photographs taken from the same point in space and if you need the pan/zoom functionality, you have to choose varying pitch and yaw to produce these photographs. This is very popular in real-estate and architechture and is catching on in the tourism industry as well.

With the video technology catching up, one can now apply the same logic to video images, add sound and other special effects to make the ''virtual tour'' experience as real as possible.

This particular tour is generated by view360.in and their website boasts of a number of places right from temples to waterfalls; from mountains to GRT Grand bay.