A virtual tour is an interactive presentation that creates the sense of being in a particular place. Viewing one, the user feels they are not looking at a photograph or a video but at the object itself, through their own eyes. That brings a great many advantages, which is why the format is used so widely across different fields.

What is a virtual tour?

Technically, a virtual tour is a spherical projection of an image, built from 3D panoramas - images with a 360° horizontal field of view. They have no visible seams or overlaps, which is what creates the sense of a single continuous whole. In building a virtual tour, panoramas are joined together and transition points are created between them.

Where ordinary photography can only show an object from a single viewpoint, a virtual tour lets the user see the space all around them, zoom in, and examine the smallest particulars and details. It is exactly how a person looks around a place in reality: stepping closer to whatever interests them, leaning in towards it. In other words, a virtual tour creates the feeling of genuinely walking through a place or a building.

At first glance this all looks like magic, or the result of some very modern equipment. But once you understand what a virtual tour actually is, it becomes clear that creating one is not especially difficult - though it does, of course, require certain skills and the means to shoot the panoramas themselves.

The panoramas within a virtual tour are connected to one another by navigation elements. These are transition links that let you move from one viewing position to another. There are additional elements too: pointers, arrows, captions and links.

The stages of creating a virtual tour

In practice the process of creating a virtual tour consists of only three stages:

• Shooting the panoramic images;
• Processing the resulting images;
• Assembling the tour itself from them.

Given the right equipment and software, all of the necessary work can perfectly well be done yourself. The main thing is to think each stage through carefully and try to account for every detail, because even small mistakes can affect the quality of the finished product.

How do you shoot a panorama?

It is worth starting with panoramic images and what makes them distinctive. Panoramas divide into flat and spherical types. The first is a wide-format photograph combining two or more separate shots, taken so that each overlaps the next by roughly 20-25%. Photographs like these can be taken with a smartphone.

Spherical panoramas are characterised by a 360° field of view in the horizontal plane and 180° in the vertical, so they convey the image of the entire surrounding space. In theory these can also be shot with a smartphone. To get a virtual tour of respectable quality, though, it is better to use professional equipment:

• A DSLR, ideally with a full-frame sensor;
• A wide-angle lens with a good field of view;
• A stable tripod;
• A dedicated panoramic head, which mounts the camera on the tripod and allows it to rotate;
• A levelling platform to set the horizon, fitted below the panoramic head on the tripod;
• A remote release for firing the shutter without touching the camera.

That is the fullest set of equipment, and it will give the best tour quality. If necessary, however, you can manage with the camera alone, rotating it around the point where the optical rays intersect. This is called the nodal point, and identifying it is critical - otherwise the resulting photographs cannot be stitched into a panorama at all.

The basic rules of shooting

When shooting, the camera needs to sit at the centre of an imaginary circle, and you must keep the focus correct in every frame. The easiest images to assemble into a panorama are those whose edges fall across a plain, single-tone background. Once the circle of shots is closed, point the camera up, then down, and take those frames too.

There are a few straightforward rules to observe when shooting panoramas:

• Every shot must have the same orientation in space;
• A panorama is assembled from photographs taken at the same time;
• Panoramas shot from above must be taken from a consistent height;
• Take care that neither the photographer nor the equipment appears in frame;
• All panoramas must be at the same resolution;
• The distance between panoramas should be no more than 4 m.

When several rooms are being shot, the frames must make it clear how to get from one to another. The optimal number of panoramas for a tour is five, though you can certainly build a visualisation from fewer.

Processing the images

The next stage is image processing. Here it is important to watch for differences in colour and in exposure. To make processing easier, shoot in RAW from the outset. Stitching photographs into a panorama is done with dedicated software, which anyone can download; some of it is free, some paid with additional options. The finished panorama can be viewed in a web browser or a Flash player.

When processing stitched panoramas, contrast and brightness are corrected so the images look more natural and detail is not lost in the shadows. Light sources may need colour correction, and retouching can be used to improve the overall look.

How do you make a virtual tour out of panoramas?

The third stage is assembling the finished panoramas. Before you set about making a virtual tour, choose a suitable application and get to know what it can do. They all work on the same principle: panoramas are linked to one another by transitions, and active zones are marked on the images which let the viewer move elsewhere or zoom in.

These transitions appear as markers. They do not obscure the image, and they show where to click in order to carry on viewing. Additional features can be added:

• An audio track;
• Links;
• Animated elements;
• A list of panoramas with previews;
• A YouTube video.

Virtual tours also include a radar showing the current location, a control panel, and a plan of the site or building. The user can move between locations freely, choosing where to go with a click, or automatically along a route the author has laid out.

Where should you publish a virtual tour?

A finished tour can be shown to an audience in several ways. The simplest is on a computer screen or via a projector. More often, though, virtual tours are published online so that as many people as possible see them. For publishing on the web you might choose:

• Sites for hosting virtual tours, such as TrueVirtualTours;
• Google Maps;
• Yandex Maps.

Bear in mind that a virtual tour takes up a lot of space on the server, especially if it contains many panoramas. That can cause problems when a user views it.

Once published, you can embed your virtual tour or share a link to it on:

• Your own company website;
• YouTube;
• Social networks such as VKontakte;
• Avito listings;
• Property rental services;
• Google Maps and Yandex Maps.

Where you publish depends on why the tour was made. A virtual tour published through Google's services, for example, helps bring more users to the company's website - the viewer moves into the tour directly from street view.

Where and how are virtual tours used?

Virtual tours are used across a great many fields. Most often they show enclosed spaces and serve as a marketing tool, letting a company demonstrate the advantages of itself, of a retail site, of a service or a product, and put the maximum amount of information in front of the customer.

Virtual tours are worth having:

• In construction - developers use them to show what a future house or an entire district will look like, what stage the construction has reached, how the work is going, and what layouts the flats will have. It makes the decision to buy easier, so construction firms stand to benefit;
• In property - an agent can show a buyer any number of houses and flats with a tour, and neither of them has to spend time travelling to properties that were never going to suit. It is a good opportunity to examine a flat's interior and the quality of the finish, and to see the home from the inside. With houses, it becomes possible to look at the plot and see the outbuildings;
• In interior design - this matters both for the client, who can see the future scheme almost with their own eyes and ask for changes, and for the designer, who can give detailed instructions to the trades and show clearly how the space is meant to look;
• In hospitality - photographs of rooms no longer impress travellers, but a virtual tour of a hotel may well be decisive when choosing where to stay in another city. The tour can include an excursion into the restaurant, the spa and other parts of the hotel, so a future guest can weigh up everything on offer in advance;
• For restaurants - before setting out, someone can look at the atmosphere and judge whether it suits their purpose, be that a romantic date or a business negotiation. For owners it is a good chance to show off a welcoming, attractive interior;
• In tourism - it is hard to think of a better way to attract visitors and show them everything a particular trip has to offer. A virtual tour is effectively an online excursion, creating the right mood and the motivation to travel to this city in particular, to see these magnificent sights, this scenery and these beaches;
• For shopping centres and shops - ordinary banners, advertisements and other promotional tools cannot convey the full range of the offer, the number of shops in a centre, or how colourfully it is presented. With a virtual tour a future customer can size up the scale of the place in a few minutes and draw the right conclusions;
• For car dealerships - gleaming new cars make the best advertisement and the best incentive, if not to buy outright then at least to visit the showroom. And from there it is not far to buying a car;
• For leisure and sports venues - the chances of parents choosing a children's play centre rise considerably if it has a good virtual tour. The same goes for bowling alleys, swimming pools, tennis courts and other businesses operating in a crowded market;
• For educational institutions - a good way to attract students by showing off strong facilities, comfortable classrooms, a good library and other advantages.

Whatever the field, having virtual tours of your own shows clients that the company uses modern technology, keeps developing, and offers well-judged solutions. It is a good way to improve your image, including in the eyes of partners. A virtual tour motivates people to visit in person by showing a place at its best - and at the same time helps avoid disappointing clients whose expectations go unmet.

Common mistakes when creating virtual tours

The most common mistakes with virtual tours come from preparing the panoramas badly. Using an ordinary smartphone or a cheap camera, for instance, you can only produce low-resolution images. A tour built from panoramas like that will be soft, and will not let the viewer zoom in and examine detail. In such cases you usually have to reduce the display size, and viewing the result tends to make people dizzy.

There are other typical mistakes:

• Shooting in automatic mode - differences in exposure mean a great deal of time spent converting the photographs afterwards;
• Failing to level the camera - the horizon can be straightened with specialist tools, but doing so is quite difficult;
• Shooting straight to JPEG - only a minimal set of tools will be available for processing those photographs;
• Incorrect exposure - this leads to light being distributed unevenly across the frame and shadows appearing;
• Imprecise setup of the equipment, the panoramic head in particular - the joins between frames will be visible to the naked eye.

A very common problem is one or more missing frames. When that happens the panorama cannot be assembled and the shoot has to be repeated. Mistakes happen at the publishing stage too: without the right parameter, for example, a link opens in the current tab rather than a new one, meaning the visitor leaves your site. Editing the source files by hand can cause problems opening the tour.

What else should you consider?

Choosing the right time to shoot matters. For a commercial property it is better to shoot outside business hours, when there will be nobody in the rooms. Allow enough time for the shoot. Ideally, visit the site beforehand and choose your shooting positions. Often you will need to tidy the space, clear objects out of frame and straighten the furniture. On average a single panorama takes about five minutes to shoot on a DSLR - but in low light it will take longer because of the exposure times.

Getting a good result is especially hard when moving people or vehicles come into frame. In that case you have to shoot several takes of each frame. The same applies to broken cloud, since the lighting must be identical across every shot; otherwise the stitching seams will show.

The advantages of virtual tours

Virtual tours are already in high demand, and their popularity will only grow. That is down to how capable and versatile they are, how many purposes they serve, and how straightforward they are to create. There are other advantages too:

• Publishing a tour on a website increases its traffic;
• Users stay on the site longer, which helps its position in search results;
• Clients trust the company more, thanks to the completeness of the information and the openness it demonstrates;
• Tours are available at any hour, so the user can always look at what interests them and reach a decision;
• They create the sense of being there, which raises the likelihood of a purchase or of other actions the company wants;
• The viewer controls the experience themselves and can examine whatever interests them closely;
• A virtual tour is considerably more informative than photographs, even photographs taken by a professional in perfect quality.

One more advantage is memorability. Having looked at several websites, the user will remember best the one where they saw a virtual tour. That is a real competitive advantage, and it helps meet clients' expectations. It is far easier for a user to look through a tour than to study dozens of photographs and re-read text descriptions, trying to picture a restaurant's interior or a flat's layout for themselves.

Virtual tours save time for a company's staff and for its clients, reduce effort, and therefore deliver a clear commercial benefit. People take in most information visually. If the video or images on a site are dull or poor quality, there is a strong chance the potential client will go to a competitor instead.

Once you have worked out how to create a virtual tour, doing it again becomes considerably easier and largely error-free. The format can be used for advertising or other purposes, to promote a business effectively or to improve how you work with clients - all for a minimal financial outlay.

Article by Ekaterina Mazurova

Read also:

1. How to create a 3D virtual tour? A step-by-step guide.
2. Transition points between panoramas in a virtual tour.
3. How to create a virtual tour. A detailed worked example.
4. How to create a virtual tour? Video guide.
5. Choosing equipment for shooting spherical panoramas