Toronto’s CN Tower, Canada’s National Tower, has released the new CN Tower Viewfinder app, which is designed and developed by Fuzz Productions in Brooklyn, NY. Created to enrich the experience of on-site visitors, the app represents the first and only attraction in Canada to offer a virtual reality observation experience at 1,136 feet.
The app celebrates the City of Toronto’s skyline from the perspective of the newly renovated observation level at CN Tower and features spectacular 360-degree day and night panoramic images. Guests with the app can identify various points of interest across the city and can now answer the question “What am I looking at?” from their own iPhone or Android mobile device.
“As a Canadian icon, we are always looking to expand our digital engagement with our guests from all corners of the world,” said Joanne Pawlicki, director, marketing and communications for CN Tower.
“Through leveraging emerging 3D and virtual reality technologies, the new Viewfinder app enhances guest experience and greater interaction with Toronto’s skyline,” said Kevin McManus, CN Tower‘s director of information technology. “It is also complementary to the CN Tower Experience app, launched in June 2016.”
As part of CN Tower’s unveiling of the newly renovated observation experience, the new Viewfinder app further launches it into a new echelon of digital tourism. Designed and developed by Fuzz Productions, the app calibrates a user’s location on the observation level using the phone’s internal sensors that behave like a gyroscope. This pinpointed calibration allows guests to scan the Toronto skyline and discover over 90 landmarks and points of interest, including architecture, entertainment, and geography. Reflecting the diversity of its guests, the app supports five languages: English, French, Spanish, Korean, and Mandarin. The app is available as a free download at the App Store and Google Play.
“Fuzz couldn’t be more excited to work with CN Tower on a 3D immersive experience in the new Viewfinder app,” said Nat Trienans, CEO and co-founder of Fuzz. “It both enhances the CN Tower visitor’s experience as a digital tour guide to the Toronto skyline, and allows everyone around the world to enjoy the incredible views from CN Tower right on their mobile.”
Future considerations include exploring the addition of Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities by harnessing the soon to be released iOS 12, which includes Apple’s new AR development toolkit. CN Tower plans to also add additional features such as detailed descriptors for each landmark and evaluate capabilities to share postings to social media sites.
