Virtual Reality (VR) photography has come a long way. The technology for taking a series of related photos of a scene, stitching them together and then placing them in an animated, navigable framework has been around for some time — it just keeps getting better.

Three current links:

http://www.utah3d.net/SulpherCreek_swf.html
http://www.utah3d.net/DoubleArch1_swf.html
http://www.utah3d.net/PaysonC_swf.html

Rotate all the way around, zoom in (shift) and out (ctrl) , tilt up and down, or any combination of the above. The potential for using this type of technology for non-photographic purposes — for example, to visualize large, complex sets of data — is intriguing.