School districts that purchase the Questar III’s Virtual Building Tour service can “walk through” every space of every building, both interior and exterior, with the click of a mouse. The secure program is intended for emergency management planning and insurance documenting purposes.
Questar III contracted with VPix – a company that specializes in 360 degree photo mapping equipment and photographers for real estate, crime scene management and homeland security purposes – to be the sole provider of school district photo mapping in New York State.
To start, Questar III’s Health and Safety staff spends a significant amount of time photographing all interior and exterior spaces of the district when no one is there. The photos are then loaded on to the VPix software and strung together. District administrators and other authorized users can then click on arrows to navigate around the buildings. Each space has a pull-down menu with more information about critical infrastructure components and detailed inventory lists.
East Greenbush CSD recently had all seven of their buildings photographed and mapped for inventory control in the event of a fire or loss where they’d have to prove what was in the building. They also purchased the service for security purposes for emergency personnel or law enforcement.
“The end product is even better than I expected,” said East Greenbush CSD Assistant Superintendent for School Business Finance Larry Edson. “The photography is high quality and makes dark rooms bright. We are just scratching the surface of what we will use this product for – there’s a lot of utility in it.”
Averill Park CSD is currently working with Questar III in creating their virtual building tour. They also plan to use the service for security and insurance purposes. In addition, Superintendent for Business Michael Ouimet said the service will be helpful in planning capital projects.
“Last time we started planning for a capital project we spent the entire day bussing our Board of Education from one building to another to look at what we had,” he said. “Now we can do it from one room. I’m very impressed with the service so far.”
In addition to the initial photographing and software upload, Questar III will come back to the district to take new pictures anytime there is a change to the infrastructure. They also provide technical support and online access to the software on an annual basis.
Pricing is based on square foot and is BOCES aidable. Please contact Questar III Health and Safety at 479-6974 for more information, or click here.
