A tri-force is in place; Google Maps, Street View, and Photosynth have taken the mystery from moving and successfully reduced a month long process into an afternoon internet session.

No more running around town peeking in windows of dark houses trying to scope out the size of a living room or the condition of a bathroom. No more waiting for late landlords, or driving past a house because the neighborhood looks run down. Much of the foot work required in compiling a list of potential houses, or apartments/condos/igloos, to move into can be done sitting on your fat lazy American butt, intelligent butt that is, online at your computer.

Get the Satellite View

When you find a house on the market that fits your budget you can first Google Map it to see its relative location from everything in town. How far is the bike ride to your work place or school, how far is the park for the kids, is there a dog park around? (Very important questions) You can see if the house is on a major road, near a highway or railroad tracks, and if it is close to your favorite river; you can also check the acreage of the lot and much more.

See it From the Street

To get a look at the exterior of the house itself Google has begun to build upon their Street View capabilities. Now, in many cities including Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, and Cincinnati, Ohio; almost anyplace in town can be seen from the perspective of the street. In Street View you can look right at the house as if you are looking at the house from the street. Check out the parking scene, take a look around the neighborhood, walk to the local park, check out the yard, the view, the condition of the building itself; you can even look up at the sky and enjoy a 360 degree turn of your potential place of residence.

See the Interior

Now you have seen the neighborhood, the exterior condition of the house, and the yard; it’s time to take a look inside. Microsoft has recently released Photosynth, a picture stitching program that enables a virtual 3-D tour of any place that has been submitted to the Photosynth web site. Although the technology of taking many pictures and turning them into a 3-D type tour exists already in QuickTime VR, Photosynth offers an easier process that only requires a camera and many photos as compared to QuickTime VR’s special tri-pod stabilizing equipment. It seems that any real real estate agent with half a lobe will jump at the opportunity to present their houses virtually online for potential buyers to “walk through”. Stitching programs work by overlapping photos together like puzzle pieces to generate larger, sometimes 360 degree, views; Photosynth and QuickTime VR take stitching technology to the max by forming them into virtual worlds with walls and halls that you can virtually, using your computer, walk through. You can literally scroll down a hall of a house going into all the bedrooms seeing their color schemes, check out if the bathroom is equipped with a fan, or check out the appliances in the kitchen. Some of the first Photosynths have been of famous places around the world and are available at the Photosynth website listed below. I highly recommend that you download the program and check out the capabilities.

So, now that you have seen the satellite view of the hood, the lovely sight of the bay windows, and have had a virtual walk through of the house; you have successfully just weeded out ten prospects that did not add up to your high standards saving yourself loads of time and energy. So rest, dang it; grab a book and relax will ya? Sheesh.

Mark Stegman Sept 3, 2008.

http://photosynth.net/
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/qtvr/
http://maps.google.com/