Aspen Movie Map

The Aspen Movie Map was a revolutionary multimedia system developed at MIT by Andrew Lippman in 1978. The Aspen Movie Map allowed the user to take a virtual tour through the city of Aspen, Colorado. This was accomplished with the use of four video cameras, which were pointed in different directions and took video footage while mounted on the back of a truck through the streets of Aspen. Once the footage was recorded, the pictures were linked together and allow the user to choose one of several predefined paths in which to tour the city.

Using videodisc technology, the Aspen Movie Map allowed for non-sequential access to the program's data and allowed the user to start at a particular point and move forward, back, left, or right. The Aspen Movie Map also contained footage of the inside of notable landmark buildings in Aspen, allowing the user to take a virtual tour through those buildings.

Another notable feature of the system was a navigation map which allowed the user to jump directly to a point on the Aspen city map instead of finding the way through the city streets to that destination.