Hestia Media Captures DPC in 3D

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a real challenge: how do you give a virtual tour of your campus or building that captures the imagination? The Maine Business School partnered with Hestia Media, LLC, to try to give visitors a sense of place online. You can now take a 3D virtual tour of the Donald P. Corbett (DPC) Business Building.

Xander Karris, a MaineMBA student and owner of Hestia Media, spent three hours one sunny Saturday morning slowly walking through DPC. He explains that there are essentially three steps to capturing a space: scanning, processing, and embedding content. “Scanning involves using a powerful camera, which uses infrared light to understand the space it’s in, to map out the space in 3D carefully,” Karris says. He started at one of the building’s front doors. He stopped every four steps to take a 180-degree scan with his camera, which pivoted on a tripod. 

Once the data is collected, Hestia Media processes the data to organize it into a visual model. Adding the extra content, like still photographs and highlighted text, is the last piece to the puzzle. 

Bloomberg Lab

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Xander scans our Bloomberg Lab.

“Working with Xander allowed the Maine Business School to showcase state-of-the-art technology to show off the features of the Donald P. Corbett Building while supporting the entrepreneurial endeavors of one of our MaineMBA students,” says Jason Harkins, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the Maine Business School. “Leaning into technology like this is particularly crucial for students that cannot visit campus in person because of COVID, but want a sense of the building that will be the home of many of their classes over the next four years. We are thrilled with the results and the ability to explain what makes D.P. Corbett and the Maine Business School special.”

Karris has always had a love of space. As a child, he was determined to become an astronaut. Though he still maintains an intense fascination with astronomy, entrepreneurship has kept him anchored to Earth. “Nearly all my life, I’ve been coming up with new ideas to help solve problems in meaningful ways,” Karris says. 

Karris has been working on Hestia Media for the past year, forming an LLC at the end of 2020. “My goal is to be the number one 3D tour provider in all of New England within the next couple of years,” he says.