Walk the halls of the demolished Lake Washington High School

Enjoy a virtual tour of the old LWHS building - built in 1948 and replaced in 2011.

Features

Check out what the site has to offer:

Enjoy 360 degree views of any room at LWHS! Look in any direction, zoom in to see details, and click hotspots to travel around!

Visit areas of the school normally off limits! Explore!

Enjoy an easy to use interface, with an interactive map and full classroom list.

About the Project

In 2009 I had to choose a Senior Project for my final year of high school. I went for a challenge.

With the knowledge that my school was going to be torn down in the coming years, and desperate for a way to combine my love for technology and new found obsession with panoramas into a challenging senior project, I came up with something that would take me over a year to finish and hundreds of hours to complete; preserving the entire school in digital form. With my knowledge of Google streetview and realtor-type interactive tours, I came up with the idea of photographing every room in Lake Washington High School, stitching the photos into panoramas, and then stitching the panoramas into a virtual tour.

What I didn't realize is A) how many rooms there are in LW, B) how long it takes to stitch large panoramas, and C) how bad the lighting is in a standard building. All my hardships aside, 9,000 digital photos later I had successfully photographed (almost) every room in LW. However, this was the easy part, if you can believe it. What came next was months of exhausting work, painfully hand stitching photos together in various software applications (this was before the VR/360 cameras we have today that make all this way easier), masking out tripods slowly with a digital tablet, and drinking more coffee than I care to divulge. It seemed like I would never finish and all my work would be wasted.

However, in 2011, I finished putting the last puzzle pieces together and started contacting the district to get permission to post my project online. I had finished what I thought infeasible.

A Video Tutorial

Are you confused by this site? Having trouble navigating through the building? Need an in-depth tutorial? Check out the video below!

Launch the LWHS Virtual Tour

Ready to view the virtual tour? Click below to launch the tour in a new tab!

August 2016 - The tour has been rebuilt to take advantage of HTML5! New version supports almost any OS or device (desktop and mobile). There is even support now for Google Cardboard!
Looking for the old, flash-based version of the tour? I highly recommend using the newer HTML5 version, but if you really need the old version, you still can access it by clicking here: link

Thanks and Support

This project would not have been possible without the help and support from these people, and I thank them deeply for their help:

Mr. Malloy
(Past) Principal of LWHS
Darla Catlin
Leanne Fike
Jeremy H.
My wonderful parents!
Kit C.
Teachers at LWHS

And thank you for viewing my project! Seeing it being used makes all my effort worth it


If you want to thank me, or just help support the site and hosting costs, I appreciate any gesture, not matter how small.

A great way to thank me is with an amazon gift card. There is no minimum amount and they get sent directly and instantly to my inbox. Just click the icon below to go to Amazon's Gift Card page. My email is joshua.tz@gmail.com
Another way to support the site is to send feedback! I love hearing how people are using the site! Click below to email me a message!
Finally, you can help spread the word about the site by liking its Facebook page!

Contact

If you would like to submit feedback anonymously, use the form below.