Everest Panorama by Yandex: now in 3D!

The article on Yandex.Taxi was barely out when a new reason to mention the projects developed by this company came up. Just a few days ago an article on the opening of the amazing and very educational Everest Panorama project was posted on the Yandex blog. This project is a collaboration between Yandex and Toyota, and it makes use of every modern technology available in our day and age. It uses multimedia mixed with three-dimensional environments, Yandex.Maps (a service similar to Google Maps) and panoramic surveys. But the project is not only a major technical achievement, it has an interesting story behind it as well.

In 2016, a group of mountain climbers, with support from Yandex, started their journey to conquer Everest, constantly photographing their progress as they were climbing the mountain. After achieving their goal, the group returned with a lot of good experiences and photographic materials. This was the beginning of the “Everest Panorama” project that gives you a chance to retrace the entire climbing path, to behold all-round views of the environment, and to listen to the story told by the mountain climbers themselves.

The story starts with a view of a 3D model of the mountain accompanied with welcoming remarks by the narrator. Photographs, textual information and an inviting voiceover are here to help draw you into the picture, however, the most interesting part is still ahead...

This is a 3D map of Mount Everest and its surroundings. It has lots of fine details, animations and moving clouds to make the picture feel natural and alive. The path of the expedition is marked yellow. You can choose a key point on the path and the program will transport you right to it.

The majority of the multimedia content is concentrated here. You can find lots of panoramic photos, stories told by the mountain climbers, additional background information and more. And if you are bored with beholding the scenery from this particular point, you can always go back to the 3D map and select another. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say.

The “Everest Panorama” website is the biggest multimedia project in the Russian segment of the Internet. All the leading Russian online medias such as L!FE, Gazeta.Ru and many others have written about it. Aside from intriguing content, it offers interesting technical solutions. Fusing conventional technologies with WebGL allowed the creation of a complete, seamless and very entertaining project. Just like the mountain climbers themselves, WebGL has conquered a new height, and now you can plant a Blend4Web flag at the summit of the virtual Everest.

And in closing… I am not afraid of these big words: Blend4Web has proven its full readiness time after time for projects of any complexity. It is indeed no coincidence that the biggest companies on the Internet choose this framework for their projects that use WebGL.

I might also add that this is yet another project developed by the partners of Blend4Web, developers from JetStyle studio. Congratulations!