Boulder, CO -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/01/2011 -- Students, faculty and alumni at Hackley School are experiencing their school grounds and facilities in a whole new way with CampusBird™, the first interactive campus map platform using 3D and other dynamic media.

CampusBird, developed by Boulder, Colo.-based concept3D, presents a virtual mapping environment and content management system, based in large part on Google Earth and Google Maps, for prospective students and other visitors to explore.

Administrators at Hackley School, an independent, college preparatory school for students K through 12 in Tarrytown, N.Y., say the online 3D tour gives prospective students and their parents an appreciation of the school’s rich architecture, history, academics and athletics, and incentivizes them to visit the campus in person.

CampusBird offers several benefits beyond student recruitment, school officials said, including capital fund-raising and use by campus planners, architects and engineers, development staff and safety personnel.

“For outreach to alumni, for example, it’s been a great tool,” said Waits May, Hackley’s online communications manager. Campus planners and architects also are using the map “to experiment with the footprint of future buildings,” May added.

Students have been enthusiastic about the 3D capabilities. “Awesome!" one ninth grader said. Viewing details of the baseball stadium, he added, "No one is ever going to hit a home run at the new baseball field now."

Anyone accessing the map at http://hackleyschool.org/3Dcampustour can zoom into the campus and “fly” via Google Earth to any of the school’s historic buildings such as Allen Memorial Hall or the recently expanded Goodhue Memorial Hall, viewing each in 3D from any direction.

“With ‘campus map’ being one of the most commonly searched terms, the CampusBird map and 3D content allow for a completely immersive online experience,” said Oliver Davis, concept3D CEO and co-founder.

The system is simple for schools to manage, adding it to their own websites with just a few lines of code and updating and adding photos and campus information with its content management system.

Schools also increase their online visits and visibility as each map is added to maps.google.com, Oliver said. Users then can zoom into campus 3D map details beyond Google Earth’s satellite images.

“Parents or prospective students often use online search and Google maps initially to look into a school,” said Travis Warren, CEO of WhippleHIll Communications, which delivers next-generation web services to independent schools. Concept3D is a WhippleHill ecosystem partner for its CampusBird interactive maps and 3D services.

WhippleHill and concept3D recently held a webinar describing how schools are benefiting from 3D campus maps. It’s available online in WhippleHill’s webinars archive.

To create a CampusBird 3D map, concept3D’s team of globally recognized 3D modelers and web developers build photorealistic 3D models of campus buildings and grounds and place them in Google Earth. Layers of information are added to the CampusBird platform to provide location-based details such as individual building info, parking and Wi-Fi hotspots.

The process, which takes anywhere from four to 12 weeks, produces a detailed virtual environment that current and future students, campus visitors, university staff, alumni and community members will find both useful and fun.

“Our clients find so many ways to use the 3D content and maps that they often achieve ROI / payback in as little as three months,” Davis said.

Along with the institution’s own website college.campusbird.com and the CampusBird iPhone app, the models and maps appear on Google Earth, Google Maps and other websites that use Google Earth browser tools.

About concept3D
We make 3D and the Web work as one.
concept3D, online at http://concept3d.com, melds geography and interactive multimedia into a single discipline that transforms how location information is created and presented. The market leader in Google Earth 3D and Google Maps development, concept3D was founded by former employees and directors of @Last Software, acquired by Google in 2006. Its team of 3D experts – all former Google employees – has developed more than 10,000 custom models in Google Earth. concept3D’s roster of more than 100 clients includes Disney, NREL, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Sony, SunPower Inc., SPG Solar, NextEra Energy, Michael Baker Corp. and Kimley Horn. Based in Boulder, Colo., concept3D is privately held.
Other independent schools using CampusBird and concept3D media services includes Blair Academy and Proctor Academy. Universities adopting the 3D campus map include Northeastern University, Boston University, Regis University, University of Colorado Boulder, NC State Centennial Campus, Haverford, Hofstra and UMass Lowell.

About Hackley School
Hackley School, located in Tarrytown, N.Y., is an independent, college-preparatory, non-sectarian, day and board school for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Founded as an all boys’ boarding school in 1899, it became co-educational in 1970.

About WhippleHill
WhippleHill Communications provides targeted communication solutions for independent schools seeking next-generation web services.