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EveryScape is taking 3D tours to another level, as it's going beyond simply giving street views of stores, and enabling visitors to go into stores virtually and view it realistically.

The company, based in Waltham, Mass., will launch its virtual tour service in Cambridge and Lexington, Mass. in December 2007. Visitors will be able to see the local streets and inside the locations of participating stores.

To get their store on the virtual tour, businesses will pay from around $250 to $2,000, depending on the size of the business. That gives them a computer-generated indoor tour of the business for a year. If they want the changing merchandise to be displayed, they can pay more for constant updates.

The Harvard Coop is one of those that have signed on for the service, and corporate general manager Allen Powell said that tourists "are going more and more on the Web to view a destination before they get there. We want to tell a better story through the Web."

Powell thinks adding a in-store virtual tour could possibly bring in new business by letting people see the variety of goods the store offers.

What is basically done for inside shots, is the company takes a camera with a fisheye lens which captures the 360-degree area. That's done by taking two shots in the opposite directions. From there software is used to blend the images together and creates a model. It presents things in a way that a person would view it if they were standing in that exact spot in the store; whether looking up, down or to the side.

The concept of offering a in-store 3D tour is nothing new, although EveryScape seems to be the first one to implement one. The question for business owners is whether it's of any value to them.

At this time it's really too early to tell. It depends on if it is used primarily as a driver of physical store traffic, or companies eventually allow consumers to "pick" things up off virtual shelves and look at them in a realistic 3D, rotating experience. That can be done now of course, without the 3D tour thing.

While this will get some press because technology like this is always interesting to talk about, it's going to take some time to even get enough locations - and stores within those locations - to be part of the service.

One thing I do think we can be sure of, is in-store 3D interaction will be part of the online shopping experience in the future. This is definitely a step in that direction.

You can view Harvard Square and how it's presented by EveryScape here. It includes a Google map which can be used to see where you are as you travel online on the real streets.