Frequently Asked Questions

General

What is a 360º VR panorama?

A 360º VR panorama is a computer-displayed image that provides an immersive 360 degree view of a scene. Using your mouse you can look around within the image, dragging to change the viewpoint and look left, right, up and down. It’s as close as you can get on the web to the experience of being at the scene, which is why it’s sometimes called ‘virtual reality’ or VR. Our portfolio isn’t short of examples, take a look.

What is a 360º virtual tour?

A tour combines several individual panoramas so that you can move from one location to another, from room to room within a museum, for example. This can be achieved in different ways, interactive floorplans are sometimes used, or the viewer can click on hotspots within the panorama itself.

Marketing

How can a 360º tour help my business?

A website can be an effective marketing tool, but it can often be difficult to convince potential customers of the excellence of what you have to offer. Stunning views, luxurious interiors, capacious cabins, awesome exhibits, sumptuous style - words often don’t do justice to the reality and conventional photography is no longer as trusted as it once was. A 360º VR tour provides an impactful and immediate experience that, as well as being hugely impressive, inspires confidence in your product and helps to differentiate you from your competitors. It’s the next best thing to actually being there.

What kinds of businesses can benefit from a 360º VR tour?

We have produced VR tours and panoramas for luxury hotels and accommodation providers, tourism attractions, restaurants, art galleries, museums, gardens and private air charter companies.

What does it cost?

Our fees start from £250 for a single 360º VR panorama, inclusive of photography and production. If you’d like us to quote for a project, fill out the short form, email, or give us a call.

Technical

What does the photography involve?

Photography is done using conventional professional camera equipment, usually a digital SLR camera mounted on a tripod. No flash or other artificial lighting is used.

How are the 360º panoramas produced?

Several photographs are combined using software to produce a composite image.

How can I add a tour to my website?

We can produce and host individual panoramas and tours for you, so all you need to do is add links to your site pages. Alternatively, we can supply you with the necessary files for you, or your website administrator to add to your site.

Will visitors to my site need a plug-in or other software to see the tour?

Our Panoramas and VR tours are displayed using Adobe Flash Player. Flash Player is installed on 99% of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide and is pre-installed on computers running Microsoft Windows XP and Vista and MacOS.

Do the 360º VR images take a long time to download?

The images are, on average, about 1MB in size and take only a second or two to display on a broadband connection. If you’re concerned about the viewing experience for visitors on slower connections, we can produce lower-resolution preview images and opt-in downloads.

Can the 360º images be printed?

Yes, but to map the 360º view onto a the 2D paper surface it’s necessary to distort it. The most common method is to produce an ‘equirectangular’ image that’s twice a long as it is tall. The process is a little like that used to project the surface of the Earth onto a map. The most extreme distortion occurs at the edges and this can be cropped to produce a more aesthetically pleasing image with a slightly narrower field of view. All of the flat images on this website are equirectangular projections.