http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5lM_KefDkg UPDATE: C3 have now been acquired by Apple.
The last thing I expected to see tonight at one of the many fringe events that take place around Mobile World Congress was Swedish missile technology.
Yes, Swedish.
C3 Technologies have developed an incredible 3D map imaging system… a kind of Google Earth on steroids. The 3D projections are amazingly accurate with over 100 cities covered - far more than Google or Microsoft. Watch the video - the images are stunning…
The key to building such detailed models (and so quickly) is that C3 use aerial imagery (rather than manually-constructed models or laser-scanning) which their ‘secret sauce’interprets into photo-realistic 3D models. Users can pan infinitely around the models created in real-time with 10 centimetre accuracy. With all the cleverness done on C3’s servers the imagery can be streamed live to PCs as well as mobile devices like the iPad - no special hardware is required.
Having done some online house-hunting recently I can immediately see some uses for real-estate agents, but the software is being licensed for a huge range of uses… In the UK ‘yellow pages’ listings provider Yell.co.uk is using the technology to map major landmarks.