Seneca College gets Google Street View treatment

You won’t get a diploma, but soon anyone can attend Seneca College with just the click of a mouse.

Virtual tours of Seneca College’s Newnham and York campuses are coming to Google Street View.

Over 5,000 photographs snapped on site will be stitched together to form a 360-degree virtual tour of the facilities, including the classrooms, labs, and dorms as well as the amenities such as the day care centre and the gym.

“The magnitude of the job is absolutely huge. Newnham is 10 buildings and we’re going to cover all of those,” Andrew Klotz, the lead photographer for the shoot told CityNews.

A five person crew of photographers and stagers will roam the campus with cameras equipped with fish eye lenses to shoot 360-degree images.

Klotz said the tour will give Seneca a chance to show off the school’s unique features, like fire engineering labs and broadcast studios.

“If you can’t be there in person it’s a good way to get a feel for the place,” said Klotz, whose company Launch Listings has also shot restaurants, retail stores, and seniors’ homes for Google.

Peter Freer, Seneca’s digital marketing specialist, told CityNews the initial thought was to showcase the school to potential students, but the tours are useful for existing students as well.

“Our students are avid internet users, like everybody these days, so it’s an opportunity for our students to view the campus without the travelling,” Freer said.

Launch Listings is one of 14 Google-certified photography companies that work on these projects in Toronto.

Toronto users can already take a peak inside many sites including Trump Hotel, the McDonald’s at Queen and Spadina, or Fairview Mall.

The Seneca tours will be available by the end of April.

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