Find Your Way the High-Tech Way
Those who say a map is not the territory haven’t visited Rice’s interactive campus map. Have a look here. Click around there. Activate a blue dot, and you’ll see a picture of the building it’s attached to. Click a name in the building list, and you’ll be taken to the building — virtually, of course. Click down to street level under “Related Information,” and drive along the tree-lined lanes.
It’s all part of a grand plan to make Rice more accessible to everybody. The page, which sits atop a Google map and adds building details and photos to its standard street names and satellite views, allows users to locate bus stop markers and locate police call boxes throughout campus, as well as to get the street views provided by Google. High on the list of features to come are more descriptive text to go with the building photos, cell phone access to maps and GPS locator capabilities so users can pinpoint their location on campus.
And if that isn’t enough, check out the new virtual tour of campus, where you can find 16 different 360-degree, interactive panoramas taken on and nearby campus. Each panorama is accompanied by a brief text box that explains the scene and provides links to other information. The feature also includes a map showing where the shots are located. More virtual vignettes will be added in the future as new projects around campus are completed.
It still may be true that a map is not the territory, but the Rice interactive map and virtual tour are the next best thing to being there yourself.