"About 80 percent of most decisions are based on location, so geography underpins a lot of those decisions," said Trevor Harris, chair of West Virginia University's Department of Geography and Geology.

But with goevirtual technology at WVU, you can get a better look at what makes up a specific area without actually going there.

"It tricks the users to thinking that they're immersed in a totally different location," said Vic Baker, director of the Geovirtual Lab. "It's video games on steroids."

But Baker said that's just one of the uses. Developers call their research tool "the cave."

"We can go in and reconstruct a crime scene or use our cave as a training tool for crime scenes," said Baker.

Baker said on a basic level, the program can even alert people to sales and rebates.

"The business is able to update the information in our geoportal and be able to notify individuals of daily specials," he said.

The technology is currently geared toward a target market like real estate or tourism, but it can be adapted to just about anything.

The WVU lab is currently looking for academics and commercial partners for ways to transfer the technology to different markets. Baker says he's ready to get it on store shelves as soon as possible.