The “MIT Aspen project” Jobs mentions is the **Aspen Movie Map**, an early interactive, street‑level video map of Aspen, Colorado, created at MIT in the late 1970s as a kind of proto–Google Street View.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s)[wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map)
## Year and timeframe
- The core filming for the Aspen Movie Map took place in **fall 1978**, **winter 1979**, and again briefly in **fall 1979**.wikipedia+1
- The first operational interactive system was demonstrated in **early 1979**, and the project is generally dated **1978–1980** in the MIT and project creators’ own descriptions.naimark+2
## Who was involved
The project emerged from MIT’s **Architecture Machine Group** (ArcMac), precursor to the Media Lab, under **DARPA** funding.historyofinformation+2
Key participants and roles include:
- **Nicholas Negroponte** – Director of the Architecture Machine Group; secured Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) support.vice+2
- **Andrew (Andy) Lippman** – Principal investigator; led the hypermedia/interactive video research and overall system design.inventinginteractive+2
- **Michael Naimark** – Responsible for cinematography design and production, including camera rig concept and filming methodology.naimark+1
- **Peter Clay** – MIT undergraduate whose earlier “movemap” of MIT hallways seeded the concept; helped originate and prototype the approach.wikipedia+1
- **Bob Mohl** – Designed the on‑screen map overlay, conducted user studies, and contributed to early hallway and Aspen filming work.inventinginteractive+1
- **Walter Bender** – Designed and built the interface, client/server model, and animation system that linked the street map to video segments.[wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map)
- **Paul Heckbert** – Developed algorithms for 3D polygonal city models and texture‑mapped facades of landmark buildings (Quick and Dirty Animation System, QADAS).[wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map)
- **Rebecca Allen** – Worked on visual aspects and is often cited in later accounts as part of the creative team.rebeccaallen+1
- **Scott Fisher** – Matched historic silver‑mining‑era photographs to contemporary Aspen views and experimented with anamorphic imaging.[wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map)
- Additional contributors included **Steve Gregory, Stan Sasaki, Steve Yelick, Eric “Smokehouse” Brown, Mark Shirley, Paul Trevithick, Ken Carson, Howard Eglowstein**, and others handling electronics, laserdisc interfaces, and metadata encoding/decoding.vice+2
## How it was created (capture and system)
## Image capture in Aspen
Jobs’ summary in the talk is accurate but abbreviated; the technical process was more elaborate:[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s)naimark+1
- A **gyroscopically stabilized camera rig** with **four 16mm stop‑frame film cameras** was mounted on top of a car, oriented to capture **front, back, left, and right** views.naimark+1
- A **fifth wheel** (bicycle wheel) with an optical encoder was dragged behind the car; every **10 feet** the encoder triggered all four cameras to capture a synchronized frame set.naimark+1
- The car was driven **down the exact center of every street** in Aspen to allow clean “registered” match cuts when the user moved forward or turned.naimark+1
- Filming was done **daily between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.** to minimize lighting changes and shadows.wikipedia+1
- The team shot in **multiple seasons** (early fall and winter, with additional fall work in 1979) so that users could switch between, for example, bare streets and “three feet of snow,” just as Jobs describes.rebeccaallen+1[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s)
Beyond street passes, the team also:
- Photographed **building facades and interiors** for key locations.domesday86+1
- Collected **historical photos** of buildings and aligned them with contemporary views.vice+1
- Recorded **binaural audio** interviews and ambient sound for certain downtown locations.technologyreview+1
## Assembly, storage, and interaction
The system combined analog film with computer control and hypermedia linking:historyofinformation+2
- The 16mm film frames were **assembled into discontinuous scene segments** (one segment per view per block) and **transferred to laserdisc**, an analog videodisc format that allowed relatively fast random access.inventinginteractive+1
- A **database** correlated each video segment’s position on the disc with a **two‑dimensional street map** of Aspen, encoding spatial layout and view orientation.historyofinformation+1
- A computer (using interfaces and electronics designed in‑house) controlled the laserdisc player, jumping directly to the relevant segment when a user requested to move forward, turn, or change views.inventinginteractive+2
- Users interacted via a **touch‑sensitive screen**; on‑screen arrows (forward, left, right, back) matched Jobs’ description of tapping “Walk Forward” and looking left or right at intersections.stevejobsarchive+1[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s)
- The system imposed a few constraints: users had to remain in the **center of the street**, move in **10‑foot increments**, and switch only among the **four orthogonal views**, but within those limits they could choose arbitrary routes.historyofinformation+1
## Additional media and 3D components
The Aspen Movie Map also integrated multiple media types, which is why it is often labeled “hypermedia”:core+2
- **3D polygonal city model**: Using QADAS, the team generated a coarse 3D model of Aspen, texturing landmark facades using Paul Heckbert’s algorithms; these synthetic views were stored on the same laserdisc and synchronized with video.[wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map)
- **Season switching**: Linked frames from different seasonal shoots allowed **on‑the‑fly switching** between fall and winter views while moving through the city or examining a building façade.technologyreview+1
- **Historical overlays**: In some interfaces, historic photos from Aspen’s silver‑mining days could be overlaid or juxtaposed with contemporary footage.technologyreview+2
MIT and later commentators describe the system as a **“surrogate travel”** or **“interactive movie map”**—a user could sit at a terminal and “drive” around Aspen, explore interiors, change seasons, and access annotations and history without physically being there.stevejobsarchive+2
## How it relates to Jobs’ description
- Jobs’ description in the talk—MIT coming “four years ago” to drive every street, capturing all intersections and buildings; a touch‑screen interface with arrows; the ability to walk into some shops; and four buttons to change seasons—is a concise, mostly accurate summary of the Aspen Movie Map’s interaction model and user experience.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s)rebeccaallen+1
- Modern analyses often cite Aspen Movie Map as a **direct conceptual ancestor of Google Street View and interactive mapping services**, aligning with Jobs’ use of it as an example of how videodiscs and computers could create genuinely new interactive media rather than just replaying traditional movies.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s)vice+2
1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9HmOz8H0qI&t=2035s)
2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map)
3. [http://www.naimark.net/projects/aspen.html](http://www.naimark.net/projects/aspen.html)
4. [https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2027](https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2027)
5. [https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-aspen-movie-map-beat-google-street-view-by-28-years/](https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-aspen-movie-map-beat-google-street-view-by-28-years/)
6. [http://inventinginteractive.com/2010/03/18/aspen-movie-map/](http://inventinginteractive.com/2010/03/18/aspen-movie-map/)
7. [https://www.rebeccaallen.com/projects/aspen-movie-map](https://www.rebeccaallen.com/projects/aspen-movie-map)
8. [https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=3028](https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=3028)
9. [https://www.technologyreview.com/2008/12/22/268046/d-j-view/](https://www.technologyreview.com/2008/12/22/268046/d-j-view/)
10. [https://stevejobsarchive.com/artifact/the-aspen-movie-map](https://stevejobsarchive.com/artifact/the-aspen-movie-map)
11. [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/4395599.pdf](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/4395599.pdf)
12. [https://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/conference/OberhausenExtending.pdf](https://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/conference/OberhausenExtending.pdf)
13. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FALaEG5cUmY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FALaEG5cUmY)
14. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ytd12d6qNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ytd12d6qNw)
15. [https://www.semanticscholar.org/topic/Aspen-Movie-Map/1691052](https://www.semanticscholar.org/topic/Aspen-Movie-Map/1691052)
16. [https://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/conference/YesterdayToday.pdf](https://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/conference/YesterdayToday.pdf)
17. [https://www.lri.fr/~mackay/pdffiles/CACM89.VideoEditing.pdf](https://www.lri.fr/~mackay/pdffiles/CACM89.VideoEditing.pdf)
18. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX6LOFIzCfo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX6LOFIzCfo)
19. [https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/preview/9940923/Rob%20Eagle_THROUGH%20THE%20WARDROBE%20Exploring%20the%20potential%20of%20headset%20AR%20to%20provide%20a%20Thirdspace%20immersive%20media%20experience.pdf](https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/preview/9940923/Rob%20Eagle_THROUGH%20THE%20WARDROBE%20Exploring%20the%20potential%20of%20headset%20AR%20to%20provide%20a%20Thirdspace%20immersive%20media%20experience.pdf)
20. [https://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Aspen_Movie_Map](https://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Aspen_Movie_Map)
21. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_3_5mklXM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_3_5mklXM)