International premiere: the first virtual tour of the Danube Delta
Norc.ro(www.norc.ro), the first online street navigation service in the Eastern Europe, announces that it has released the first panoramas taken from the Danube Delta, with the support of GeoEcoMar
Online, June 30, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Bucharest: Norc.ro(www.norc.ro), the first online street navigation service in the Eastern Europe, announces that it has released the first panoramas taken from the Danube Delta, with the support of the National Marine Geology and Geoecology Research and Development Institute - GeoEcoMar(www.geoecomar.ro).
Starting with today, both the 200.000 users from Romania, and the 1 million NORC users from all the 7 Central and Eastern European Countries where the service is active, will be able to sail through the Danube Delta using the navigation and orientation tools provided in the NORC Street-view service.
This initiative will provide internet users from all over the world, the opportunity to virtually travel through parts of the Danube Delta, thus promoting its beauty in Romania and abroad. The Danube Delta is the only delta in the world that has been declared a biosphere reserve, starting with 1990, as part of the UNESCO world heritage (http://bit.ly/deltaUNESCO) and part of the "Man and Biosphere" program developed by the organization.
The first 1000 panoramas of the Delta have been introduced on www.norc.ro, as part of a test mapping and sums up to a trail of 40 km, that includes parts of the Danube river and a series of lakes. In order to access the panoramas, the users should access the Street-view section of the NORC website.
Lucian Neagu shared a few thoughts on the new panoramas containing images from the Danube Delta: "We have extended our mapping service to one of the most beautiful places in Romania, through which the city dwellers that have grow tired of the overcrowded cities, can retire for a few minutes of serenity. Now you can travel inside the Delta in fullscreen and navigate through it with the help of a few clicks."
NORC will continue to map the Danube Delta until autumn, in partnership with GeoEcoMar, and will introduce new routes on which a user can virtually explore the Delta.
Alongside the promotion of the Danube Delta, this initiative benefits the scientific sector as well: "GeoEcoMar has a great deal of experience in researching the Danube Delta, running geological, geophysical, geoecological and biological studies, with the goal of becoming aware of the deltaic system evolution and health status. Applying new monitoring techniques, specifically the panoramic views of NORC, will help us track the amount of sediment movement, at least for some of the Danube Delta sectors" stated dr. ing. Gheorghe Oaie, General Director of the Institute.
About Norc.ro
NORC is an online urban orientation service developed by Extreme Group SRL in Romania since 2007, and covers several countries in Eastern Europe: Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Austria.
The visual map of Romania, the most developed version of the service, available at www.norc.ro includes three interactive elements of orientation: a digital map where one can search by street name, a module of street view and navigation through various photos of each street, through panoramas that allow both rotation and navigation along the streets and that can be displayed full-screen, and a directory of points of interest, located inside the map and inside the street panoramas.
Currently, the services of visual orientation of Norc.ro covers in Romania the capital city and other 76 major cities. Here, the visual guidance of Norc.ro highlights both points of interest in the area (restaurants, hospitals, pharmacies, kindergartens, etc.) through NORC Recommendations service, and also real estate offers of each area in part by NORC Real Estate service, both available for all the companies interested in locating their headquarters or their real estate offers on the map or inside panoramas.
NORC offers weekly updates on improvements made to the services with the help of a dedicated blog, available at http://blog.norc.eu. Also users can stay in touch with the latest news about the NORC Services using the Facebook page or the Twitter account.
Alternatively, you can contact the social media communication agency STANDOUT/Ionut Oprea, +004.0721.614.964
Since May 2010, the contents of the NORC Real Estate service is available also on iPhone or iPod Touch, through the N!imobiliare application. More details on www.norc.ro/iphone
About GeoEcoMar
INCD GeoEcoMar is a research and development institute of national importance, dealing with geology, geophysics and geoecology, focusing on aquatic, marine, deltaic and river environments. The modern research infrastructure, based on marine and river ships, allows the INCD GeoEcoMar to undertake complex multidisciplinary studies as part of national and international research programs.
Thanks to the scientific performances and to its technical performance attained in a short period of time, the institute has become the National and European Excellence Centre for environment and geoecology studies in river-delta-sea systems, with a focus on the Danube Delta - Danube - coastline - Black Sea macrogeoecosystem. The institute takes part in and runs projects financed through internal resources, state or private funds(ROMPETROL, PETROM, MEF) and external sources(European Comission 6 and 7 Programmes, structural funds, PHARE, UNESCO, NATO, etc.)
Contact: Sebastian DAN, sebi@geoecomar.ro, Tel. 021-2522396, 0723228345