Taking down a show at the SPUR Urban Center Gallery is always a sad moment. An exhibition is one of the best ways to de-nerdify our policy research and make it accessible to a wide audience. But once it comes down from our walls, we lose that public window into our work. So when we heard about Microsoft’s Photosynth technology, we got excited. Photosynth creates a virtual environment by collaging together hundreds of very high resolution photos. In short, it could allow anyone to visit our exhibitions from their computer any time — even days, weeks or years after the display panels have come down.
Our current exhibition, Adapt! Climate Change Hits Home, provides a great chance to test out this technology. We're proud of the research behind it, and we want as many people as possible to know about the coming affects of climate change and the adaptation strategies SPUR recommends for our region. Composed from 283 photographs taken in the Urban Center Gallery, the photosynth below lets you walk the exhibition floor and even zoom in close enough to read text and view graphs and images.
To visit the virtual gallery, first click the image below to download Microsoft Silverlight. (Yes, there's a download required. Is it worth the extra two minutes? That's your call — but SPUR staffers both young and not-so-young became converts after trying out the incredible zoom tool.)
After downloading, return to this post or visit the full-size version on the Photosynth site and hover your cursor over a portion of the image; the white outlines indicate photographs that you can pan or zoom towards. You can also use your keyboard’s arrow keys to pilot through the space, explore the nooks and crannies of the Urban Center’s ground floor, and learn all that Adapt! Climate Change Hits Home has to share.
Note: You will need Microsoft Silverlight to view the exhibition.
Download Microsoft Silverlight >>
Read the SPUR Report "Climate Change HIts Home" >>