Municipalities rent out spaces for many uses: function halls, meeting rooms, sports halls and school classrooms after hours. A hirer often first wants to know whether the space will work for them.
The answer is often sought from photos, a floor plan and a phone call. Sometimes it only comes during a site visit. Photos show a space from one angle at a time, but they do not tell you what it is like to move around in it.
A space you can move around in
A 3D model that runs in the browser gives the hirer another way to get to know the space. They can open a link on a phone or a computer and move through the space. There is nothing to install.
An example of a place you can walk through in the browser is Calesta's own showcase work, a windmill. You can walk around the windmill and through its surroundings. The same idea could also work indoors.
What the venue owner gains
When a hirer sees the space before they call you, their questions can be more specific: will the tables fit here, is the stage big enough, where do guests come in. It can reduce how often the same basic questions come up. A site visit can also be prepared better, because the visit can focus on details.
Getting in and moving around
If the experience also shows the entrance and the area outside, the hirer can see what the entrance is like and whether there are steps. That helps them think about what to ask.
Venue owners should show the space honestly. If there are steps at the entrance, it is better for the hirer to see them in advance than at the door.
This does not replace official accessibility information or measurements. It is extra information that helps the hirer know what to ask.
Where to start
You can start with one space, for example the main hall or a popular meeting room. When it works for one space, you can use it for others.
At Calesta, we build 3D environments that run in the browser, some of them using 3D Gaussian Splatting. 3D Gaussian Splatting is a way to build an environment you can view in the browser from a real space.