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A virtual tour is a series of “panoramic”
images linked to each other that allows you to view a room or
scene as if you are really there. it also has interactive map,
hotspots, links, thumbnails, etc. Virtual tour photography
gives a seamless 360 degree visual environment that offers far
more contextual information than a series of static images or
a linear video clip for the same amount of downloadable
bandwidth. We can integrate several panoramic images into a
complete tour package with a custom visual layout and
navigation design. Virtual tours are supplied in QuickTime,
flask and java. It usually takes just over an hour for a
photographer to shoot a virtual tour of four scenes.
There is no right or wrong way of doing a virtual tour. It can
be created based on what you want to achieve, whether you want
or need to buy software to create the tour with, etc. Most
Java viewers allow adding functionality by adding parameters
into the HTML code in the web page you display the panorama
on. However doing this can be time consuming - if you are
creating many virtual tours you will save time by investing in
software that helps you put together the tour. QuickTime and
ImmerVision's PURE products amongst others will store all the
metadata information about the virtual tour into the single
file, which makes it easy to publish and keeps the web page
HTML code simple.
Virtual tour photography gives a seamless 360-degree visual
environment that offers far more contextual information than a
series of static images or a linear video clip for the same
amount of downloadable bandwidth. Several panoramic images can
be integrated into a complete tour package with a custom
visual layout and navigation design. Virtual tour photography
can be easily done by shooting a fish eye image and then
stitching into panorama in panoweaver and finally by importing
panoramic image into tourweaver thereby creating a virtual
tour.
Virtual tours photography considers certain aspects of
panoramas:
- Hotspots - A hot spot is a part of the panorama image or
which is setup so that when you click on it something happens.
The most common example of this is a hot spot over a doorway
in a panorama - when clicked on you appear in a new panorama
that shows you what the room the other side of the door looks
like.
- Embedding sound – it is a sound included in panoramas such
as background sound effects.
- Embedding movies - The most obvious example here is a
panoramic picture of a hotel room. By clicking on the TV, a
movie clip is played which is super-imposed on the TV screen
to make it look as if you turned the TV on.
- Embedding objects within panoramas - Various viewers now
allow you to put an object movie within a panorama. This means
that instead of having a boring single colour or fixed
background for the object as it is rotated, it rotates around
inside a panoramic scene.
- Scripting movement and interaction - Most viewers allow you
to set them to start panning or rotating once they load. A few
allow you to script specific movement, which can either occur
when the object or panorama loads, or when the use clicks on a
backdrop. |
