Accessible Venue Walkthrough
Before visiting an unfamiliar venue, people with mobility needs can rehearse their route in a real-world 3D space and verify entrances, ramps, passages, and sightlines from their seat.
Before setting out, wheelchair users, people with limited mobility, and visitors who feel anxious in unfamiliar places can open a venue’s real-world 3D replica. They select an entrance, seat, restroom, or exhibit area, then specify whether they use a wheelchair, cane, or stroller, or may need to rest along the way.
The system walks them through the actual route, highlighting door widths, ramps, narrow passages, turns, and places to pause. They can switch to wheelchair height or another low viewpoint to see whether crowds or barriers could block the stage, display cases, or signs. Any key point can be captured and sent to the venue for confirmation.
If a route includes unmarked steps, temporary closures, or reliance on an elevator, the product lists it as something to confirm before the trip. Venue staff can add entrance hours, available loaner equipment, and alternative routes. Frequently reported obstacles are aggregated for operators, helping them identify omissions in their accessibility maps.
The first version covers only areas the venue has photographed and maintains. It does not replace on-site staff or claim that a venue meets accessibility standards. It is a visit rehearsal that lets people identify conflicts between a route and their own needs before leaving home.
Why now
An immersive Gaussian Splat tour of Grace Cathedral, published on July 20, had 88 points and 17 comments and ranked 20th when observed on July 21. S1 The demo makes pre-visiting a real venue in 3D more tangible, while exposing the limitation of generic walkthroughs: they cannot validate a route against an individual’s mobility needs.
Target user
The core users are wheelchair and cane users preparing to enter an unfamiliar venue for the first time. Caregivers traveling with them and parents with strollers face similar decisions. The need is strongest after tickets are purchased but before departure, when the destination is fixed and the cost of a last-minute detour rises. They need to know not whether a venue is generically “accessible,” but whether their own equipment, stamina, and seat can make the full route work.
Minimal entry point
Start with venues that already have Matterport spaces. Its SDK can control the camera, add tags, and read measurement data. S2 In the venue editor, staff first draw a passable route map manually, with nodes for entrances, elevators, ramps, restrooms, and rest stops. User conditions only filter routes and generate confirmation items; they do not automatically determine whether a venue is compliant. The first release should not infer steps or door widths from imagery, avoiding the presentation of model error as a definitive result. Screenshots should include the route node, viewing height, and issue description so staff can respond directly.
Punching above its weight
Partner first with museums, churches, and small performance venues that already offer 3D tours. Use their existing models to create one real visitor route, reducing the friction of initial deployment. Invite local wheelchair communities to conduct paid walkthrough reviews, then turn their findings into an actionable improvement list for each venue. Share direct links to specific route rehearsals so visitors can open them without installing an app.
Competitors & gaps
- MatterportGoogle
- Matterport can scan venues into embeddable 3D spaces. Its SDK provides camera controls, spatial tags, and measurement capabilities, while its Model API can access meshes, point clouds, panoramas, and positional data. S2 These capabilities can support a real-world walkthrough, but they primarily serve general digital-twin workflows. Its public developer tools do not directly assess wheelchair turning space, reliance on ramps, or the need for rest stops, nor do they create a list of questions for the visitor to confirm with the venue. The opportunity is not to rebuild a 3D viewer, but to layer personal mobility needs, human-verified route maps, and venue responses onto existing models. This uses venues' existing assets while keeping maintenance responsibility with the operator.
- AccessNowGoogle
- AccessNow provides place search, accessibility ratings, feature tags, photos, and personal reviews. Users can flag ramps, elevators, automatic doors, and accessible restrooms. S3 It is useful for deciding whether a place is broadly worth visiting and for collecting community experience. But its core unit of information is still the venue, its tags, and post-visit reviews—not a continuous walkthrough of a route inside the venue. Users cannot easily verify a path from an entrance to a specific seat or exhibit area. Photos also rarely answer questions about door width, turning space, and obstructions at a lower viewing height. The opening is to use a venue-maintained, real-world 3D replica so visitors can inspect each segment against their own needs and send concerns, with viewpoint screenshots, back to the venue.
How it makes money
Charge venues an annual subscription tiered by the maintained area and number of editor accounts. Bill separately for initial modeling, data import, and route annotation. Keep the visitor experience free so a critical pre-trip check is not behind a paywall.
The case against
The central risk is that a 3D model can look realistic without offering sufficiently reliable dimensions or update information. One incorrect clearance could leave a visitor stranded by steps, a narrow door, or an out-of-service elevator. Temporary barriers, crowds, and event setups can also invalidate a route quickly. Venues therefore need to maintain route nodes continuously and clearly identify which data has been manually verified. The 3D interface itself must work with keyboards, screen readers, and low-performance devices, or it creates another barrier to access. If venues will not take responsibility for updates, an independent developer is unlikely to sustain trust by scraping public tours; in that case, avoid automated expansion and focus on a small number of deep partnerships.