For years I've heard students and staff complain about not having a map that was useful for the general user. One that helps you get around and find things, but also shows off Texas A&M and makes it look good. In fact, I know of a guy who did his entire GIS masters thesis about the state of maps at A&M and the need for more user friendly mapping and way finding. 

This project actually started when I worked in Admissions. We always said that as soon as someone steps foot on this campus, they will apply to come here. However so many people aren't able to make their way to Aggieland before that time comes. So we were looking for a way to show off our campus and use it for the marketing and recruiting tool that it is. It has taken over two years and me moving to another position in the Division of Marketing & Communications to complete.

Enter CampusBird. Campusbird is a product of Concept3D and was perfect for Texas A&M. Not only did they render our campus to incredible detail, but the interactive tools that are built on top of the map are amazing. 

We all know it, 360 photo and video are the future. We have partnered with CampusBird to be one of the first universities to fully embrace 360 and VR campus experiences. We are constantly adding new 360 panoramas and soon, many 360 videos of campus experiences as well as what Aggies are doing around the world!

With this new interactive map of campus, a perspective student can play with the layers and get a real feel of the campus and how areas are relative to eachother. You can search for "coffee" and see all of the places to grab coffee and which one is closest. You can just highlight the residence halls (or even narrow it down by type of hall) and see where you might want to live on campus. The features are endless.

The Campus Tour feature is also something we had wanted to update for a while. Now a prospective student or visitor anywhere on earth can walk the official campus tour and learn about our history and traditions. They can flip through pictures, video, and read about our buildings and statues.

Each location also has a unique link so that we can link directly to it any time it is referenced. 

We've even made layers for specific events that allow users to just see the buildings, routes and points of interest that partain to that day/event.