According to a Web search, there are fewer than a dozen companies in the world that use the 360 degree cameras, which cost in the hundreds of thousand dollars and require computers with massive memory for post-production editing and storage.

The camera is a memory hog, said Kadow. It records at 1.3 gigabytes a minute, but with special software, the images are reduced to a much lower digital file for viewing on a laptop or desktop computer.

"The Denali project took seven days to record, used two special laptops that were digitally recording the visuals and were also connected into two GPS units that sent exact location information along the way linked into the video," said John Wunsch, managing member with Immersive Video Solutions. "We used two, 500-gigabyte hard drives and captured images on five different drives."

The Denali group's Dave McDowell said the video saves time and money in its efforts to survey the groundwork for a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Lower 48. The viewer can move the image to any part of the area recorded: forward, back, sideways or upward.

"The film lets technicians 're-fly' the pipeline route at will, zooming in on specific points of interest from any direction," he said. "This capability is tremendously valuable to Denali's designers as they evaluate topography, riverbank conditions and structures along the route. The investment in the film will result in significant savings by reducing the number of flights necessary to conduct the work - flights replaced with virtual immersive flights. This approach will minimize safety risks, conserve energy and let individuals 'fly' the route from the comfort of an office, using a computer mouse to control the flight."

Wunsch said the market possibilities for 360-video in Alaska is limitless.

"Instead of flying engineers out to a location to look over the terrain, they can pull it up any time of the year on a computer and look at hundreds of miles, with exact location information right in their workspace," he said.

Kadow declined to say exactly how much his work costs, but said it's at least a couple of hundred dollars per mile.

"Compare this to how much you will save by being able to see the imagery 365 days of the year in the comfort of your board room or office," he said. "And the price of the imagery is a cost saving in the long run, over chartering helicopters to go over the same route countless times."

The visuals are also key to mapping and surveying and have been used by the Alaska Department of Transportation for airports and roadway projects.

"The use of 360-degree video has completely changed the field of mapping and geographical information systems," said Kadow. "As the video is captured, each frame is tagged with GPS coordinates as well as the time index. Plotting these coordinate sets allows us to overlay projections of the route of the camera onto maps."

Kadow started the company three years ago, after finishing up a 25-year career in emergency safety response for spill and hazardous material responses in Alaska.

"I was thinking of how much more meaningful conversations would be if people could fly over the country and see what it really looks like," said Kadow. "Then I heard about this camera and the technology and became curious."

He and partner Gabby Lujan met with the developers of the technology and formed the company, said Kadow. They have since taken in several investors to expand the business.

Immersive Video Solutions has completed imagery for several resource companies and government agencies in Alaska and Canada.

Immersive Video has so far recorded 700 hours of digital 360-degree videos and stores its imagery both in Alaska and on servers worldwide.

The company's server arrays consist of storage in offsite secure server farms, and it has a network of 25 terabytes in its South Anchorage offices.

"This is just a drop in the bucket," said Kadow. "Our goal is to continue to record the whole state and get it into the conference room or onto your desktops."

Rob Stapleton can be reached at rob.stapleton.@alaskajournal.com.