Stunning: interactive panorama of church being demolished

Hands up if you have never been inside a church as it's being demolished. Still here? Excellent. Then this is for you.

Philadelphia-based photographer Matthew Christopher has made a name for himself by taking pictures of abandoned buildings in America - called, appropriately enough, Abandoned America. A visual autopsy of the American Dream, it's a heartbreaking and jaw-dropping catalogue of buildings long left forgotten by poverty-hit, careless or otherwise absent owners.

He was approached by Microsoft to demonstrate the company's new software. The result? A stunning interactive panorama of the inside of St. Bonaventure church, which is soon to be reduced to rubble.

"Remember how I said I had something neat to show you today? Microsoft had contacted me about creating some content for the launch of Photosynth2 (the original ran my panoramas). Here's the first of hopefully many," he wrote on his Facebook page.

"This is basically done from 38 or so images I took and then individually edited. What Photosynth2 is doing that is so impressive is that it is essentially filling in the gaps by making the pictures into a rough model of the room. You'll see a bit of glitchiness but you'll also see it creating a 90-95% accurate rendering, and that's pretty amazing, especially considering where it will grow to as it evolves."

Here's the finished thing (via Curbed):