STUFF – May 1st 2015 | Interactive panorama of Christchurch CBD

Aerial footage of Christchurch’s central city has been turned into an interactive panorama of the post-earthquake recovery.

Helicam Pro manager Jared Waddams captured the view of Christchurch’s rebuilding CBD in early April and spent three weeks “stitching” the images together to create a website “like a high-definition Google Earth”.

Waddams believed drones would eventually become part of everyday life and he completed the Airscapes project to show people what could be done with the technology now.

He received permission to close the airways above central Christchurch for about 15 minutes and take his drone 300 metres above the ground. The normal height allowance for a drone user was only 120m, he said.

The Airscapes website, which went live on Thursday, gives a 360 degree panorama of the Christchurch CBD. The view is a combination of 37 high resolution images which were taken from a single point.

“You can spend  time just touring the whole city; it’s quite enchanting actually, quite mesmerising,” Waddams said.

He planned to update the images as the city’s post-earthquake rebuild continued. “We’ve just got such a unique city scape at the moment.”