A program for creating a virtual excursion. Designing virtual excursions

Electronic cards serve as good assistants when conducting distance lessons and can be used in regular classes in almost all school subjects. The created virtual tours allow students to focus their attention on certain moments of the lesson and make it more vivid and memorable.

Tour Builder

Description

The Tour Builder service, developed by Google, allows you to create your own virtual tours. The tool is based on the Google Earth service.

Geteach

Description

The service is based on the Google application. The author of the application is a teacher from Austin (Texas, USA), Josh Williams.

Operating principles

To create a route, you need to select an object on the map, enter its description and insert a photo. The service makes it possible to compare two maps, use drawing and measuring tools, marks, Google Street technologies, the ability to work with layers, you can insert selected maps and photographs.

Possibility of organizing group work in the service

Group work on the service is not provided. Team work can be organized in the classroom and ask students to collect material to create labels.

Tour Creator

Description

Tour Creator is powered by Google and is designed to create virtual tours based on Google maps.

The service allows you to create a virtual tour in a short time using Google Street Map photos or your own 360-degree photos. It is possible to create a tour using a cardboard VR helmet Google Cardboard and the Expeditions service.

Operating principles

To start using the service you need a Google account. Before starting work on creating a tour, you must provide a description of the tour and insert a cover photo. The service allows you to use Google Street technologies; it is possible to add a description of individual elements of a building or structure to the image.

Group work on the service is not provided. Team work can be organized in the classroom and ask students to collect material to create labels.

Examples of work

TimelineJS manual

Description

TimelineJS service is a generator of interactive timelines for the web. Immediately after starting to create their project, the service will offer users detailed instructions with screenshots on how to work with the service’s tools. There is also a video that will show all the user’s actions. The service is multifaceted. We will only consider creating tours.

Operating principles

They say, Now a virtual tour should be on the website of each school. However, the events that will be discussed took place back in 2014. At that time, educational institutions had not yet faced such a task, and I was taking the very first steps in creating spherical panoramas and virtual excursions. After practicing in my apartment, dacha, and even the neighboring forest, I decided that I was ready to complete my first serious order. Now, after years, having more than a dozen good custom projects behind us, it’s even funny to remember what mistakes were made at the beginning of my career. I decided to write this text to tell you how you can make a virtual tour. And not only at school. For anything. Suddenly you yourself want to create something similar, at least you will know where to start.

What are virtual excursions?

They can be immediately divided into several characteristic groups.

1. Text + pictures

This is probably the simplest option. You simply create a separate page on the website (virtual excursions are usually placed on the websites of institutions), and start writing text for the intended visitor. You can add photos there. Thus, you can literally solve the problem of website compliance with “modern requirements” in just a couple of hours.

You understand, this will just be a job “for show”. Perhaps a site visitor will scroll through the long, “cluttered” text, but most likely he will not read it thoroughly. The commission checking the site is also unlikely to be delighted with this excursions. Of course, they will put the proverbial checkmark on the site, but they will do it with such a sour face that you will immediately want to redo everything so as not to look so faded next time.

2. Presentation

Sometimes it is similar to the first option. When you open the virtual tour, you will immediately see a series of slides. Each one will have the same “cluttered” text and photographs, alas, not always well taken. Despite the fact that this is a more “innovative”, “multimedia” approach, the reaction of the commission is usually approximately the same as in the case of the text version. Again get a "tick" for a "tick".

True, some creators of such virtual excursions sometimes provide each presentation slide with a voice-over. Imagine, the first slide opens, the start screen appears, beautiful background music starts playing, and a pleasant voice begins to talk about your institution. While flipping through the slides, the visitor hears the continuation of the story, sees new pictures, etc.

A well-made presentation on your website can keep your visitors occupied for a long time. However, creating a beautiful, interesting product requires a lot of time, good photographs, high-quality text for voice acting and a voice that does not stammer or burr, but speaks properly. Alas, as practice shows, such products are usually made hastily, on the last day before inspection. Is it any wonder that they, too, deserve only a condescending nod from the inspectors.

3. Video

If in the past we were dealing with static pictures, a video about an organization can be made much more “alive”. If you create a script properly, write an interesting, “catchy” text, make the speakers spit semolina out of their mouths and speak more freely and artistically, then the video film may well pass as a good option for implementing a virtual excursion.

The trouble is usually that ordinary people, non-specialists, can rarely write a script or say something to the camera, not to mention artistry and impromptu performances on camera. And in general, speaking in front of a camera is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. It is not surprising that the person who was just casually talking with you stands in front of the lens as if he had “swallowed a stake” and speaks monotonously, looking at the camera with fixed, unblinking copper eyes.

I'm not even saying that a good camera and microphone for recording sound, lighting and editing equipment are extremely rare in ordinary schools.

4. Virtual tour

This technology, more than anything else, has the right to be called full virtual tour. Unlike the previous approaches described, it really allows you to “look around.” After all, this is exactly the opportunity a visitor has when he, along with other excursionists, dejectedly wanders through the halls of some museum, the workshops of an advanced enterprise or other tourist sites, listening to the memorized jabbering of the guide.

Unlike previous options, where the visitor’s field of view is artificially limited by the frames of a photograph or video frame, in a virtual tour you can actually “look to the right”, “look to the left”. In principle, nothing prevents you from looking back, looking up and even at your feet. True, the visitor, of course, will not see his feet, but he will have the opportunity to examine the parquet or carpet on the floor.

In a word, the user seems to be inside a sphere that he can rotate in front of his eyes on the computer screen using the mouse. Just like on a regular excursion, in a virtual excursion you can “come closer” to the item of interest in the exhibition, or, on the contrary, “step back” to see it in its entirety. This is done with the mouse wheel.

Now imagine that you put on virtual reality glasses... You don’t have to write anything further. Surely you yourself have already imagined all the advantages of this technology. Just twist your head, lift it up or down! The illusion of a real presence indoors will be simply amazing. And this is not a fantastic technology from films about the future. Now you can buy such glasses, insert your smartphone into them and immerse yourself in the wonderful world of virtual travel.

How to create a virtual tour

There are two options here. You can try to make it yourself or order the product from a specialized studio company. There is no doubt that in the second case everything will be done at the highest level. However, the cost of such orders usually turns out to be... to put it mildly, quite outstanding.

A simple example. One of the studios in Nizhny Novgorod asks for 2,000 rubles for shooting each spherical panorama. That is, if you have at least 10 rooms on your excursion, then consider that you no longer have “twenty”.

In addition to shooting panoramas, it is also necessary to assemble them into a common product and equip them with means of transition from panorama to panorama. It’s a good idea to add a card for quick teleportation to the desired location in the exhibition. The emblem of your organization and the start screen wouldn't hurt. And if we also recorded a voice-over, that would be great.

Just imagine: you move to a new room, begin to look around it, and meanwhile a pleasant voice tells you what kind of place it is, what is special about it, etc.

Let's clarify:

1. Shooting 10 panoramas - 20,000 rubles.
2. Tour assembly - 19,000 rubles. (based on 1900 rubles per panorama)
3. All sorts of cards, logos and other things - approximately 3000 rubles.

Total: 42,000. And this is a very simple excursion without voice acting and other pleasant bells and whistles!

If you want to make sound inserts or, God forbid, introduce live video into panoramas, then the cost of the order may well be six figures.

Is it too expensive for the dubious pleasure of having a virtual tour on the site? Moreover, mainly in order to earn a positive assessment from the inspectors from the ministry?

What if you try to do it on your own?

What you need to create a virtual tour yourself

1. Camera with manual settings

The basis of any such product is static spherical panoramas. To shoot them you will need a camera with manual settings. Any DSLR will do, and even a compact camera that allows you to fix the shutter speed, aperture, white balance and sensor sensitivity for all frames when shooting a panorama.

For me, for simple projects I sometimes use a Sony RX100 camera. It is lightweight, gives fairly high-quality images and allows you to make all the necessary settings. For more complex and expensive projects, a more serious DSLR with a good lens is used.

So, if you have a similar camera, consider that part of the problem has already been solved.

2. Tripod

It should be both strong enough and, if possible, light. Strength is needed so that the tripod does not tilt from side to side when the camera, while shooting individual frames of the panorama, “spins” around the shifted axis of rotation. If the tripod tilts to the side every time under the weight of the camera, nothing will come of our idea.

A lightweight and compact tripod is much more convenient to carry with you when shooting than a huge, heavy tripod. For example, my tripod, if folded completely, fits into a briefcase. All other equipment can also be stored there. Thus, on the way to the shoot, I am no different from an ordinary employee who carries business papers from home to work. I think a camera backpack and a large tripod would attract a lot more unwanted attention on the streets.

2. Panoramic tripod head

I did the very first shootings for spherical panoramas simply handheld. What does it mean? I stood in the center of the room, pointed the lens straight up and shot a point, which in professional language is called zenith. Then I had to take a series of photographs, holding the camera at an angle of 45 degrees to the horizon. Gradually turning around, I took about 12-15 photos. Shooting must be carried out with an “overlapping” of frames by about 20%, otherwise the panorama will not stick together.

Then it was necessary to shoot the same series at an angle of 90 and 135 degrees. The final chord was shooting the point that is under your feet. It's called nadir.

The result should have been about 38 photographs, each of which captured a separate fragment of the general sphere. Here's what it might look like:

Alas, at first I underestimated the importance of the panoramic head and simply shot handheld. This led to terrible inconsistencies in the already stitched panorama. Moreover, the problem was aggravated the more, the smaller the room had to be photographed.

If minor problems could be dealt with using Adobe Photoshop, then dealing with multiple inconsistencies was simply pointless.

Having lost a lot of time trying to glue something that could not be glued together, I was forced to spend money on purchasing a panoramic head.

Here's what it might look like (variations are possible, but the idea remains the same):

The panoramic head is attached to a tripod, and the camera is already attached to it. The point is that when shooting fragmentary parts of a panorama, you can (and should) force the camera to rotate around a certain point in space. This point is called nodal. As a rule, it is located inside the lens. Its position is determined according to tables and for different lenses purely individually.

If we simply take photographs holding the camera in our hands and gradually turning it, we will never be able to achieve the same accuracy of the camera's position in space. This means that inconsistencies will be inevitable. Thus, a panoramic head is something that you should definitely purchase for shooting material for a virtual excursion.

Without it, either nothing will come of it at all, or you will have to edit each stitched panorama for a very, very, very long time.

The exceptions in this case are spherical panoramas, which we photograph in large halls, or on the street if there are no objects nearby. But even with such filming, problems are more than possible.

So now we know that to capture virtual tour footage we need three things:

If you already have something, then the task becomes much easier. If at least one component from this three is missing, it must be purchased in addition. For reference, the cost of a panoramic head is approximately 5-10 thousand rubles. True, there are also more expensive heads with a built-in computer and electric motors. In fact, this is a robot that does all the shooting itself, turning the camera into the desired positions. All you have to do is press the "start" button and leave the room. The rest will be done automatically. This, of course, would be great, but for starters, a simple manual option will be enough for us.

An alternative can be a special panoramic camera, but its price of several thousand euros usually scares buyers for some reason :)

Programs for creating a virtual excursion

Now let's move on to the software part. Unfortunately, to stitch together a spherical panorama and create the final product - a virtual tour - you cannot make do with any available means. Without in any way casting doubt on your computer skills, I dare say that no one can manually stitch together 38 photographs into one correct spherical panorama. Even you!

There are different programs for stitching panoramas. I have used the tool from the very beginning Kolor Autopano Giga. First I practiced on the trial version, then, having gotten used to it, I decided to buy the licensed one. Moreover, if you buy it together with other necessary tools Kolor Panotour Pro, then the overall check will be a little “lighter” than two separate checks for each product. Such a bundle will cost 39,830 rubles (at the current euro exchange rate).

The amount is considerable. Agree. In principle, you can get by with a more modest set:

Its price is much more attractive: only 13,230 rubles. (at the current rate). Alas, you always have to pay for pleasure by giving up more refined pleasures. The lightweight "red" version has a lot of restrictions. Just one example: your virtual tour cannot be viewed on a mobile device: smartphone or tablet. But now this is almost half of all Internet traffic!

It's no surprise that all the customers I deal with emphasize the need for a mobile version of the product.

A certain fork of interests arises. On the one hand, you don’t want to pay a lot of money for an expensive set of programs, on the other hand, you want to have all the capabilities (the mobile version is just one example) that it has.

By and large, buying a panoramic head is easy and inexpensive. A person has the opportunity to independently shoot 3D panoramas. But using licensed software for gluing and authoring a tour becomes a bit of a problem.

Typically, such people either save money for a long time or find owners of licensed copies of programs. For a fee they are asked to do the rest of the work. It's much cheaper than going out and buying the software right away.

Since I have everything you need, I can offer you the following service:

You send me individual photos taken with the panoramic head. For example, like this:

and I return you the finished stitched panorama. For example, this one:

I understand your confusion. It really doesn't look like a spherical panorama. Nevertheless, it is precisely these pictures that become the sources for assembling a virtual excursion.

If you are interested in cooperation, write to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view it.

Meanwhile, I continue to describe the process.

After gluing together all the captured panoramas, it is necessary to “assemble” the finished product from them - virtual tour. This is done in the second program from those we saw above. It's called Panotour Pro. Of course, you can use analogues, but this is the program I work with.

In Panotour Pro we set the points from which viewing of each panorama begins. Next, we determine the connections between the panoramas, so that after viewing one room you can move to another, third, etc. Sound is also added here. It can be common for the entire excursion, for example: background music, or a separate sound file for each panorama.

Next, we place relevant static images into the panoramas. For example, we need to show a close-up of some museum exhibit, or present a portrait of a person working in this room, with a description of his merits...

If a TV screen or computer monitor comes into the camera's field of view during shooting, you can “layer” a real video on top of it. It will be played while viewing the panorama and will greatly enliven a static picture. Look

To add more dimension to the panorama, you can introduce certain objects, providing them with a parallax effect. For example, you can add images of butterflies that supposedly flew indoors when taking pictures. In this case, each butterfly will not be rigidly tied to its place. As the panorama rotates, it will move a little faster, which will create the illusion that it is “hanging” in space much closer to the observer than the background image itself. See example...

The result of our work will be the final product - a virtual tour. After clicking the “create” button, the program will save a set of files to your computer’s disk. It will need to be placed on the site, an appropriate link must be made, giving all visitors the opportunity to “walk” through our organization, look around the premises, read descriptions, listen to stories, watch videos.

How I did my first virtual school tour

Filming material for a virtual tour

I did my very first real project completely free of charge. You know, I was somehow afraid to immediately set a price for my services. What if something goes wrong or, God forbid, nothing happens at all. Even though everything at home was glued together normally, it was still somehow uncomfortable. As they say, training is training, but in practice something is bound to happen.

Therefore, having secured the director’s promise that they would not kill me if I failed, I arrived for the shoot on the designated day. It must be said that the school management approached the event very responsibly.

First, a day was chosen when no one was at school. It was Sunday.

Secondly, all rooms were in perfect order, all tables in the classrooms were leveled, all floors and blackboards were washed. In the dining room the tables were set as if for a banquet, and in the gym equipment was laid out all over the floor. Moreover, it is not just randomly scattered, but laid out in strict accordance with the laws of symmetry and harmony.

Thirdly, we had a clear shooting plan, keys to all the rooms, all the burnt out light bulbs in the rooms themselves were replaced, all the blinds were straightened...

In a word, it was even a little scary to get into the galosh when the customer was so well prepared.

Filming has begun. We moved from class to class. In each room I found the optimal shooting point. At my request, extra tables were removed from classrooms and minor flaws in the interior were eliminated. After all, the “cleaner” the panorama turns out when shooting, the less it has to be retouched later. I remember one time I had to clean up worn-out areas on the linoleum in almost all the panoramas. In another case, it was necessary to “cover up” the red stains on the ceiling...

Luckily it was cloudy that day. It's just that when bright sunlight hits the window, it creates a gross imbalance of lighting. As a result, some fragments of the panorama turn out to be very light, almost overexposed, while others, on the contrary, are very dark. So it’s better to reschedule the shoot if the sun is shining outside.

15 panoramas were shot in about 4 hours. The shooting itself, in principle, happens quite quickly - about 5 minutes per panorama. The rest of the time was spent moving from place to place, bringing the premises to their best appearance.

I took home with me a flash card with the footage. On the way, I kept thinking how unhealthy it would be if something happened to her and she refused to read. After all, then you will have to start filming all over again. Fortunately, everything turned out well.

Gluing spherical panoramas

As I already mentioned, there are special programs for this. Having launched Autopano Giga from Kolor, I loaded it with a photo from the first shooting point - it was a staircase between floors - and clicked the “create” button. The program thought a little and produced the finished panorama:

The stitched panorama appeared in the right window. Her appearance, frankly speaking, is somewhat unexpected. But, oddly enough, these are exactly the images that should be obtained when gluing. In the left window, as you guessed, there were sources. There are 38 photos in total.

It must be said that such an almost ideal result is not always immediately obtained. It all depends on the quality of shooting, lighting, interior design features, etc. For example, if in the process you touch the tripod with your foot and move it from its place, then it is better to immediately start shooting the panorama again. But it's good if you notice that you've moved your tripod. What if not?

Then the camera will move in space and instead of an almost perfectly stitched panorama, you may end up with something incomprehensible. Therefore, while shooting, you can’t chat or get distracted. You need to fully concentrate on the process so that you don’t have to go and re-shoot the panorama later.

The horizon line is leveled, very dark fragments are “stretched out,” and specific operations are performed that are simply not worth listing now. Sometimes it happens that the program was unable to automatically merge images correctly. This happens especially often when we are dealing with cyclically repeating decorative elements. For example, tiles on the floor, suspended ceiling cells, patterns on the walls, etc.

In such rooms, it is very important to choose a shooting point in order to eliminate symmetry in the interior design. In addition, you need to beware of mirrors. When shooting spherical panoramas, they are our enemies.

After bringing the panorama to normal form, it is exported to the final graphic file in JPG format:

If everything is in order with the panorama, then its processing takes about 15 minutes. It seems that this is too long, however, in addition to our own actions, we must take into account the time while the program glues the panorama from separate files, and then turns the edited project into an image file.

Thus, ideally, 15 panoramas could be stitched together in 225 minutes, or almost 4 hours. In practice, it almost always turns out to be more. Some panoramas require more serious modifications. Others then have to be retouched in Adobe Photoshop.

Once again, a lot depends on the quality of shooting here.

Assembling a virtual tour

Sooner or later, a moment comes when all the panoramas are glued together, prepared, and you can begin the final phase of work.

This is where the program comes in Panotour Pro the same company Kolor. Again, I cannot help but say that there are other programs. But somehow I’ve been using this one from the very beginning and I like it.

First we load all stitched panoramas into the work area (left):

It’s convenient that panoramas can be grouped. For example, by floor of a room.

Each panorama must be given a name, its starting direction must be indicated, and connected with hot spots to other panoramas and the map. If necessary, you need to add a sound file and static images. Next, you need to configure the options for the entire project as a whole: what kind of background music will be used, whether auto-rotation of panoramas will be used, what the navigation buttons will look like, whether there will be a photo gallery on the tour, whether the “small planet” effect will be applied, etc. Despite all its apparent simplicity, this process will take another hour and a half.

Then, after the final calculation of the tour, it turns out that somewhere they forgot to set a hot point to go to another panorama, somewhere they made a mistake when writing the name, somewhere they forgot to put a “highlight” on the light bulb, somewhere the panorama does not rotate in that direction" and so on.

In other words, creating a virtual tour from previously captured photographs usually takes a whole working day. No smoke breaks, teas or coffee breaks. The computer gets it too. He is constantly calculating something, working with huge amounts of data.

But sooner or later the moment comes when the virtual tour can be shown to the customer.

In the project I am describing, it occurred on March 5, 2014. To show the product to the customer, I uploaded it to the hosting where my website is located. Sent the link to the customer. With its help you can simply take a virtual tour, but you can't download it. This is very cool. After all, there are still a lot of enterprising citizens who strive to get the finished product at their complete disposal, and then start feeding breakfast about payment.

With a virtual tour, everything is very simple: here is the link, look. If you have any comments, write, we will correct them. If everything is in order, here is the invoice for payment. Once it arrives, you will receive a download link. In my opinion, everything is fair.

As I already mentioned, the project described was done without any payment. Although it didn’t turn out absolutely perfect, both the customer and I got what we wanted. The school received it. I have invaluable experience in implementing a real project.

A lot of time has passed since then. Dozens of projects have been completed for customers from different cities, including Moscow. A new technology LivePano has been mastered, which allows you to “fit” live video into a still panorama.

Now we can responsibly state the following. It’s definitely not worth mastering all this technology, buying expensive software and equipment just for one single virtual tour. Unless you constantly make such products for yourself or third-party customers. It is much less troublesome and expensive to order a service...

But how can this be? Just recently I wrote that this also costs a lot of money. Where's the consistency?

When I wrote about exorbitant prices, I was referring to the services of competitors. Some studios actually post very expensive price lists, and then they are surprised that they don’t have many orders.

If you are faced with the fact of need creating a virtual tour, you can use the options that I mentioned at the very beginning of this text: presentations or videos. Of course, compared to a real virtual tour, they don’t look as interesting, but they eliminate the need to spend a lot of money.

But... why don't you use my services? After all, I am not going to “rip off” you, my readers, like you are sticky.

Here's my specific proposal:

* plus transportation and travel expenses. I work all over Russia

** Shooting must take place in one day.

"What about the quality?" - you ask - “Where is the catch here? What’s wrong here?”

As for the low price, I’ll explain that now. It's very simple.

Expensive studios spend huge amounts of money on advertising. Naturally, in order to cover these costs, they are forced to inflate the cost of services. In addition, they contain state photographers, installers. There is certainly a director, an accountant, a cleaning lady - everyone needs to be paid salary.

A office space, which they sometimes film in the city center? What about any overhead costs? And dear prestigious automobile, on which the director rides...

VKontakte

From this article you will learn about the process of creating a virtual tour, starting from planning and taking photographs, and ending with assembling the tour from 3D panoramas.

Stages of creating virtual 3D tours

1. Approval of panoramic shooting points and their number
2. Approval of additional modifications for the 3D tour
   1. floor plan/map
   2. tooltips
   3. logo
   4. …. etc
3. Prepare the room
4. Choose a time and coordinate the shooting
   1. Date (weather dependent)
   2. Time
   3. Duration
5. Take 3D panoramas
6. Stitch 3D panoramas
7. Create a virtual tour
8. Publish a virtual tour

The first thing you need to do is select the optimal number of panoramas that will make up your virtual tour and their shooting points so as to show the location as fully and informatively as possible.

Also, do not forget to take into account the following location features:

1. complexity of lighting and the presence of mirrors
2. time at which the tour can be filmed
3. preparation of premises
4. obtaining the necessary permits for photography from the owners of the premises

From the above, it will become clear how long it will take to shoot and assemble a 3D tour.

Counting the number of panoramas and selecting shooting points

If the room does not have a complex shape and is not heavily zoned, then you can roughly arrange the shooting points on the floor plan.

When it is not possible to arrange panoramas on the plan, or the room is very large and/or of non-standard shape, there are a lot of panoramas, etc., then in order to coordinate the shooting points, you will need to organize a preliminary visit of the photographer. For the customer, the advantage of this option will be the opportunity to communicate with the contractor live and receive specific recommendations for preparing the premises.

Selecting additional modifications

If the virtual tour is intended for publication on the customer’s website, then additional modifications can be built into it:

1. Custom design
2. Location plan/map
3. Structured menu
4. Hints
5. “Back” - “Forward” buttons
6. Photos and photo galleries
7. Video
8. Video transitions between panoramas
9. Music
10. Product catalog
11. Animation
12. Call module for mobile devices

Almost all modifications pursue one of the following goals:

• make tour navigation more understandable for the user
• improve appearance
• increase information content

Add. modifications for the tour need to be selected before filming begins, at least in order to calculate how long it will take to assemble it.

At the same time, some of the additional modifications, for example, video transitions and animation, cannot be integrated into the tour in post-processing without having previously filmed material on hand.

Choosing a Shooting Time

Choose the shooting time based on the traffic and openness of the location.

The easiest way is to rent residential apartments, the hardest thing is to rent squares and crowded establishments during working hours.

Accordingly, plan your residential property shooting time based on the lighting. And it is better to plan the time of shooting commercial premises during non-working hours, taking into account the specifics of the business. If this is not possible, then choose an interval so that there are the fewest people in the room - early morning or lunch, depending on the topic.

Shooting duration

Calculate the duration of the shooting taking into account the following points - since they eat up the bulk of the time:

1. the photographer needs to inspect the location (if there was no prior visit)
2. time to prepare equipment (assemble/disassemble, fold/unfold, configure)
3. time for the final preparation of the premises - in most cases it is necessary to remove some things that were missed during cleaning, or what they managed to put away after cleaning. It is also often necessary to slightly move or align the furniture relative to the panorama shooting points
4. time for shooting panoramas - the average time for shooting one 3D panorama with normal room lighting and shooting with a DSLR camera is about 5 minutes, but the darker the room, the longer the shutter speed and, accordingly, it may take more time for one panorama
5. room lighting - shooting in a room with dim lighting will take approximately twice as long as with normal room lighting - check with the photographer you plan to work with for more details.
6. room traffic - in crowded rooms, taking panoramas is quite long and problematic, since you have to wait until people leave the frame

Shooting 3D panoramas

Equipment selection

In addition to lighting conditions, the shooting time and quality of panoramas is influenced by what equipment the photographer uses.

1. These can be portable 360° cameras - the panorama is taken in one frame. In this case, shooting takes place as quickly as possible, but the quality of such panoramas is often depressing.
2. Professional equipment - SLR cameras or equipment for scanning rooms - takes from 5 to 20 frames with alternate rotation and tilt of the camera. The quality of the images in this case is significantly higher, but it also takes more time.

Choose equipment based on the task and budget. Portable cameras can be used in situations where it is necessary to take many panoramas in a short time, and quality is not important to the customer. If image quality comes first for the customer, you will have to use professional equipment.

Shooting difficulties

The main difficulty at the shooting stage is moving objects: people, cars, clouds.

If many people pass near the shooting point, then you have to make several takes for each frame to subsequently remove people at the stage of assembling panoramas. It's the same with cars.

A very unpleasant moment is partly cloudy. To obtain a high-quality panorama, all frames taken must have the same lighting, otherwise the boundaries of adjacent frames will be visible when stitching. Due to rapidly moving clouds on a sunny day, sometimes you have to shoot several takes of the same panorama to avoid problems in post-processing.

Otherwise, filming does not pose any particular difficulties and takes up a fairly small part of the time of the total time spent on creating the tour.

Stitching panoramas

Stitching 3D panoramas from captured photographs is a completely technical stage. Assembly can be carried out in fully automatic, semi-automatic and fully manual mode.

Automatic splicing mode

This mainly applies to portable 360° cameras. Panoramas are stitched automatically in the camera itself immediately after shooting or in the software that comes with this camera.

Semi-automatic

The draft panorama is assembled automatically, after which it is finalized manually:

• Imperfect assembly defects are corrected
• Verticals are aligned
• The floor is glued

In my opinion, this is the most optimal gluing option - the program does a significant part of the work for us, and after making manual corrections we get a perfectly assembled panorama without joints.

Completely manual gluing

It is used in difficult cases when the captured photographs contain few high-contrast, detailed objects and the automation cannot find reference points - markers that the program places to connect identical parts of the image in adjacent frames. In most cases, these are rooms with plain walls and ceilings.

Processing 3D panoramas

In terms of complexity of processing, panoramas are ahead of even interior photographs.

Panoramas have the widest possible viewing angle and all light sources and underexposed areas fall into the frame, which is why the image has too much variation in brightness.

Almost always, a panorama contains light sources of different temperatures, for example, a window with cold light and a chandelier in the living room with warm light - this creates certain difficulties during processing - the light mixes and distorts the white balance.

Processing of already stitched 3D panoramas consists of the following steps:

1. Correction of brightness and contrast - the balance of image brightness is leveled and expanded, making it more natural. Light sources should not turn into spots of light, and detail in the shadows of the image should not suffer.
2. Color correction is basically equalizing the temperature of different light sources.
3. Retouching - for the most part, is the removal of wires from electrical equipment and defects from the natural wear and tear of premises during operation - scratches, abrasions, stains, dust, debris, etc.

3D tour assembly

The first method is easy to learn

Using programs with a graphical interface specially created for this purpose, for example Panotour or Pano2VR. The programs are quite intuitive and creating a tour in them does not require programming skills. The downside is the high cost of such programs. The price of the Panotour Pro 2.5 license at the time of writing is 399 €.

The second method is difficult but inexpensive and with wide functionality.

“Manual” assembly of a tour on the KRPano engine requires preliminary training and programming skills, and is also not free - the cost of a license at the time of writing is 129 €. This is a more time-consuming, but also more budget-friendly option with wide functionality. Assembling the tour directly in KRPano, more opportunities for modernizing and optimizing the 3D tour.

Tour assembly process

1. Adding 3D panoramas
2. Adding a Menu and Control Panel
   1. Standard template
   2. Custom design
3. Arrangement of hotspots - icons (usually arrows) for moving from one panorama to another
4. Setting the initial viewing direction in panoramas when selecting it through the control menu
5. Setting the direction of view when switching to a panorama via a hotspot
6. Adding additional modifications

Publication of a 3D tour

To your website

This is the simplest option; the tour is either embedded in a separate page, or a button/link is created to open the tour in a new window.

To the portal with virtual tours

It depends on the portal; on some you can upload self-assembled 3D tours, while on others you will have to separately upload panoramas and assemble a tour using the site’s web interface.

To a portal or real estate aggregator

Similar to the previous option.

On social networks

VKontakte

To publish on Vkontakte, applications created specifically for it are used. There is no ready-made solution here; each programmer offers something different.

Facebook

Similar to the previous option, with one exception. On Facebook you can publish single 3D panoramas using the built-in interface of the social network.
This only requires that the image's metadata be filled in correctly so that Facebook can recognize the panorama and differentiate it from a regular photo.

Instagram

Posting a virtual tour on Instagram is only possible as an unmanaged video.
The 3D tour is viewed on a computer while video is recorded from the screen; after viewing, the recording stops and the resulting video is published on Instagram.

Youtube

1. Similar to posting on Instagram
2. A 360° video is created, into which, instead of video, panoramic images with editing cuts between them are inserted - such a video is viewed in the same way as any 360° video.

As a conclusion

A virtual tour is a sophisticated service ideal for advertising residential and commercial real estate, as well as the services of various specialists associated with it. The main difficulty for customers is choosing a contractor due to the large number of stages in creating a tour and their complexity.

Hi all. Vasily Zorin is in touch. This is the first article about authoring 360-degree panoramas in the series “How to create a virtual 3D tour with your own hands in Panotour Pro version 2.0 and higher.”

So: I am a proponent of the practical learning model. That's why:
1. Find out the requirements for your computer and download the program itself
2. Sources for independent work you can download

Ready?

Then let's get started!
And we will create your first virtual tour in the Panotour Pro program version 2 and higher.

For visual learners, I suggest watching the video instructions:

Ok. Let's quickly put together our first virtual tour from several panoramas. To do this, let’s go to the “Tour” tab, click add photos (panoramas), select the mass method of adding photos by holding down the shift key, and using the ctrl key we can remove the frame we don’t need. Panoramas have loaded.

Let’s go to the “Style” tab, it’s empty for now. Click on the “Build” tab. Select a folder to save the virtual tour and enter the name of the project. I recommend index(when uploaded to the Internet, any browser will pick up the tour automatically). And click the Save project “Build tour” button.
There are 2 ways to save the project (at the top of the panel and at the bottom there is a large button).

At the bottom you will notice the creation bar for our virtual tour.

How to watch this virtual tour?
To view, click on View tour “View last built tour”. The tour has loaded. There is no interface or navigation bar yet.

Let's move to the “Style” tab and add the built-in “preset”. Click “Load preset” and select the classic preset “Kolor Classic”. The workspace, navigation button styles, and launch options have loaded. Click save tour.

Let's take a virtual tour. At the top you see thumbnails of the classic navigation bar. By clicking on it you can see the name of the panorama and move directly to this panorama. At the bottom we see the classic control panel.

Using these buttons you can control the tour: hide thumbnails, turn auto-rotation on and off, change the display mode (full screen, windowed), display help, hide the entire control panel.

How can you change the template (preset) in Panotour Pro?

In the same way: go to the “Style” tab, click load “Load preset” and select another template “Kolor Cross”. The workspace, navigation button styles, and launch options have loaded. Click save tour.

Let's take a virtual tour. On the right side we see a joystick. Using these buttons you can control the tour: hide thumbnails, turn auto-rotation on and off, change the display mode (full screen, windowed), display help, change zoom. At the bottom there is the same panel with thumbnails. And the names are displayed a little higher.

Now let's look at another panel: “Color Header and Footer”. The workspace, navigation button styles, and launch options have loaded. Click save tour. Let's take a virtual tour. We see a combined thumbnail panel with the virtual tour navigation panel.

The name of our entire tour and the name of the panorama in which we are located are displayed at the top.

Let's download the “Kolor iControl” template. The workspace, navigation button styles, and launch options have loaded. Click save tour. Let's take a virtual tour. At the top of the screen we see the names of the panoramas; by clicking on them we move to them.

At the bottom is a control panel with the same control buttons as in previous templates.

Thus, in just a few minutes we can assemble a virtual tour from many panoramas.

Let's go to the “Tour” tab and combine several panoramas into a group.
Method 1: simply select several panoramas, right-click and “Merge in a group” or use
Method 2: selecting one panorama and moving it to another.

Groups are taken into account in the panorama menu. Let's save the tour and see what comes of it.

At the top of the tour we see the names of our Groups and when we hover we can be transported to one or another panorama.

At the bottom we see a control panel with which we can manage our tour.

Congratulations! Your first virtual tour is ready!

If you want to master additional special effects and study this program more deeply, then you can sign up for a free course on authoring panoramas at

Virtual tours are one of the most effective and convincing ways of presenting information at the moment, since they allow you to make fascinating virtual excursions and create a complete illusion of presence for the viewer. The fact is that, unlike a video or a regular series of photographs, a virtual tour is interactive. So, during a trip, you can zoom in or out of an object, look around, examine individual interior details in detail, view a panorama from afar, look up and down, move closer to or away from a selected point, move through active zones from one panorama to another, for example, to walk around separate rooms, etc. And all this can be done at the right pace and in a manner convenient for a particular viewer. In this way, you can, for example, walk around the entire house from the inside and even inspect it from the outside, or take a virtual trip around an exotic island without leaving your own apartment.

With the help of virtual tours, you can clearly demonstrate to the viewer the appearance of an office, exhibition and store, show him inside and outside houses or cars for sale, familiarize him with the interior design of a restaurant, hotel or fitness club, present the main attractions of a tourist trip, allow him to wander around halls of museums and exhibitions, etc. However, the technology for creating virtual tours has received the greatest recognition in the real estate industry; today it is widely used by the world's leading real estate companies, such as Century21, ColdwellBanker, Rubloff, Winkworth, Corcorans, etc. Russian realtors are no exception; the pioneer in the use of virtual tours in Russia was real estate portal Home Seekers (http://www.homeseekers.ru/allnews.htm).

The main options for hosting virtual tours are Web sites and CD presentations. The presence of tours on Web sites is especially important for those companies whose appearance of premises and interiors is an important component of their business (hotels, restaurants, real estate firms, salons, shops, travel companies, etc.). The presence of a virtual tour on a website helps companies attract the attention of visitors, and therefore increase the number of potential customers. Viewing tours on the Internet is usually carried out in an Internet browser environment, provided that the Java applet is supported. Considering that a number of users do not have a Java machine installed, some developers additionally create versions of tours that can be played, for example, in a flash player. Web-based virtual tours are quite modest in size and load quickly, but differ from CD tours in lower image quality.

Virtual tours, recorded on CD, are viewed using special tour browsers and are not limited by strict requirements in terms of their size, so they can contain high-quality photo panoramas and are therefore extremely impressive. Such tours can be an integral component of electronic presentations or are a stand-alone software product representing a company, product, technology, etc. Discs with tours can be distributed at specialized exhibitions and fairs to potential clients, and, unlike the usual leaflets and brochures, they are not sent in the trash bin after a quick look.

Virtual tours are very popular. According to statistics from Realtor.com, real estate sites supplemented with tours are visited 40% more often by potential clients, and a British Market Research Bureau report shows that 80% of home Internet users use the Internet and view virtual tours before searching for a property to buy. by directly contacting a real estate agency. Moreover, according to American experts, all real estate firms that began using virtual tours experienced a real increase in sales volumes.

What is meant by a virtual tour?

Virtual tour is a combination of panoramic photographs (spherical or cylindrical), when the transition from one panorama to another is carried out through active zones (they are called anchor points or transition points) placed directly on the images, as well as taking into account the tour plan. All this can be supplemented by foreground sound and background music, and, if necessary, by regular photographs, videos, flash videos, tour plans, explanations, contact information, etc.

Virtual tours are based on photo panoramas, which differ from ordinary photographs in the interactive nature of viewing. This means that when viewing a panoramic photo, the user sees only that part of the image that interests him at the moment, and that, if desired, he can look around, look up and down, and also zoom in or out on individual parts of the image. Looking at an ordinary photograph, the viewer sees only what is shown to him and cannot control the viewing process. Even more interesting is if the user of the virtual tour can navigate between panoramas through active zones or guided by the tour map.

Advantages of using virtual tours

The main advantage of virtual tours is the ability to save time, both for the party presenting the tour (seller) and for the viewer (potential buyer or client). In addition, for the buyer, a virtual tour serves as an unobtrusive guide, and for sellers, as evidenced by a considerable number of reports, the use of tours helps to actively attract new customers, since the tours themselves turn into an effective sales tool.

Buyers in virtual tours are attracted by the fact that they can get acquainted with the object at any time convenient for them, and in addition, it becomes possible to conduct a preliminary, and very detailed inspection of all potentially interesting objects available to the seller. As a result, the list of objects (apartments, houses, cars, hotels, restaurants, fitness clubs, etc.) that need to be personally visited or inspected is significantly reduced. Moreover, in a number of areas (for example, in tourism), where a preliminary personal inspection of objects is generally impossible, a tour that complements the description optimizes the process of studying possible offers.

For the seller, the main advantages of virtual tours can be considered the following:

• attracting interest in the company, increasing its prestige, and therefore acquiring new clients, since virtual tours today arouse interest among the majority of visitors, increase the number of possible clients and increase the company’s income;
• reducing the time between creating a tour and introducing the buyer to it. In the traditional type of business, booklets are used to familiarize the buyer with the proposed objects, but a lot of time passes from the moment the booklet is created until it ends up in the hands of a potential buyer. Another thing is a virtual tour, which becomes available to millions of Internet users almost immediately after its creation;
• the possibility of varied use of the same tours on the Internet, even on different servers, and in the form of CD presentations that can be demonstrated at the client’s office, at an exhibition, etc. All this allows you to expand your audience reach;
• simplicity and efficiency of posting new, updating and replacing old virtual tours, which guarantees the relevance of the information provided.

About the technology for creating virtual tours

The process of creating virtual panoramas can be divided into three stages: photographing the object, processing the resulting images and the final assembly of the virtual tour.

The first stage of creating virtual tours is shooting an object, which is a very labor-intensive and extremely important process, since the quality of the panorama will directly depend on its results. To obtain high-quality panoramas with minimal distortion, you should adhere to a number of rules:

• the camera must be installed in such a way that, with the selected aperture, all frames in the series are in focus (it is best if the camera is in the center of the circle being photographed);
• a set of stitched images must be taken in such a way that the seams of the future spherical panorama are located in fairly monochromatic places (for example, on monolithic walls in the case of real estate objects);
• the tripod head must be equipped with levels that are designed for strict positioning of the camera in space;
• for all three shots, it is imperative to synchronize the camera in the horizontal and vertical planes camera alignment is carried out using levels;
• The camera's circular rotation angles should be 120°, which is adjusted by the turn signal scale.

Photo panoramas are created from several specially prepared overlapping photographs (Fig. 1) using special programs that stitch the pictures into a single panorama, removing the distortions that always arise (Fig. 2). There are quite a lot of such stitching programs offered today, and each program uses a special technology for stitching images and its own format for the created panoramas, and the stitching itself can be done in automatic, manual or mixed mode. You can view photo panoramas using special browsers, and you need to select the latter based on the format of the panoramic file. Many types of photo panoramas can also be viewed in an Internet browser, but only if there is support for a Java applet or by installing a special plugin.

Virtual tours are assembled from pre-created photo panoramas in other specialized applications - tour builders. In most cases, the program for developing virtual tours is focused on its own panoramic file format (although sometimes it is possible to import panoramas from other formats), so in practice the tour builder is used together with a stitcher from one manufacturer. Individual photo panoramas are connected with each other by smooth transitions due to the allocation of active zones on them (special areas on photo panoramas), which are not only responsible for moving from one panorama to another, but are also used to display additional information about objects. Active zone technology allows you to focus on individual parts of the panorama - on interior details, on new products in shopping centers, on interesting sights, on specific exhibition stands, as well as on any other information that needs to be drawn to the attention of a virtual visitor. In addition, it is possible to include interactive floor plans and navigators in the virtual tour, allowing users to determine their “location”. The tour can be viewed according to a plan, by transition points, or automatically in accordance with the plan defined when creating the project. Virtual tours, like photo panoramas, can be viewed both in an Internet browser (Fig. 3 and 4) and in specialized virtual tour browsers, specific to each tour builder (Fig. 5).

Software applications for creating virtual tours

Programs for building tours are distinguished by a friendly, intuitive interface and ease of use, and also ensure the achievement of impressive results in a relatively short period of time (however, the latter is only possible if you have perfect pictures stitched into a panorama). As a result, a minimum of time is spent on developing a software product, whereas using other technologies to obtain the same result would require a week of work by an entire team of developers.

Additionally, there are two things worth noting about tour builders. Firstly, there are very few well-known programs with such capabilities, and the undisputed leader in this area is the American company IPIX Corporation (http://www.ipix.com), which is the author of virtual tour technology. Therefore, its software products are most often used in the development of tours, including in Russia. However, there are very interesting alternative options from other companies that also provide excellent results, but cost much less.

Secondly, when choosing a tour builder, you need to keep in mind that slightly different principles of payment for programs apply here. If usually when purchasing software you have to pay for the program or purchase a time-limited license for it, in this case you may need to pay additionally for the panoramas used. This payment principle was introduced by IPIX Corporation and is still actively used by it. For this reason, the cost of virtual tours may be much higher than expected. However, there is also software for which the traditional type of payment is implemented. There are also completely free programs, but also with payment for the created panoramas. For example, Spherical Panorama, Inc. today offers free products you only pay for the use of ready-made panoramic images, and the license cost of this software is much lower than that of other analogue programs.

Now let’s present to your attention the most interesting applications for developing virtual tours.

Easypano Studio 2005

Developer: Easypano, Inc.

Distribution size: Easypano Studio 2005 79.07 MB, Panoweaver 4.0 40 MB, Tourweaver 1.30 41.84 MB

Distribution method: shareware (demo versions http://www.easypano.com/download/software/studio2005_win.exe, http://www.easypano.com/download/software/panoweaver400_win.exe, http://www.easypano.com /download/software/twwin.exe)

Price: Easypano Studio 2005 $999.99, Panoweaver 4.0 $599.95, Tourweaver 1.30 $499.95

Work under control: Windows 98/98 SE/Me/2K/XP and Mac OS X

Easypano Studio 2005 is a tool for quickly creating professional virtual tours, which successfully combines extensive functionality with simplicity and ease of use. The package includes two software modules: Panoweaver 4.0 (Fig. 6) and Tourweaver 1.30 (Fig. 7). The first of them is a 360×360 spherical panorama stitcher, which is possible both in fully automatic and manual mode, and the second allows you to combine panoramas, as well as other information, in virtual tours. The Tourweaver application can be used not only in conjunction with Panoweaver, but also stand-alone, since it supports importing panoramas created in other stitchers. For example, you can import cylindrical panoramas produced in Panorama Factory, or panoramas generated in 3D packages, particularly 3D Studio Max. In addition, it is possible to import panoramas from digital panoramic cameras Kaidan’s 360 One VR, Panoscan, RoundShot, etc.

Rice. 6. Create a panoramic photo in Panoweaver

The package is intended for professionals, but the user-friendly interface of the program, a detailed help system, and the inclusion of educational tours in the package allow beginners to work with it. Virtual tours created in this application have unique navigation capabilities: in addition to the classic button and mouse control when viewing panoramas and moving from one panorama to another, there is built-in support for a dialog map with a compass effect, which provides additional options for managing the tour.

The Panoweaver module supports the main graphic formats for stitching images: JPG, TIFF, BMP, PICT, PNG, TGA, is compatible with a wide range of cameras, provides full control over the image stitching process and supports PTViewer, QTVR, MGI Panoviewer and VRML file formats as output . In addition, the program allows you to correct some artifacts that may appear due to inaccurate installation of the camera relative to the horizontal, axis displacement when rotating the camera, as well as due to the influence of a number of other mechanical and optical factors.

Virtual tours created in Tourweaver can include spherical and cylindrical panoramas, regular images, music, links, waypoints, interactive maps and plans, regular slideshows, and text. In addition, the tour can be supplemented with a variety of information about the company, including its name, fax, telephone, Web site, email address and logo. Transition points can be set not only when moving from one panorama to another, but also to open a static image (for example, a map or plan), to follow a link, to play a music file or animation, to access a virtual compass that makes it easier to navigate the tour . Support for built-in templates, the list of which can be increased by purchasing additional template libraries on the program website, as well as a variety of panoramic display effects, provides a variety of tour design options. All this opens up enormous opportunities for tour developers, since based on the same initial information they can create a whole series of tours, which allows them to find the most effective data presentation option in a particular case and achieve excellent results.

Each of the objects introduced into the tour has a whole series of properties that can be easily managed through the Properties window. Thus, you can change the position of objects, their sizes, the reaction of the mouse when moving or when clicking, you can set a background or add a border, change visibility, etc., which allows you to quickly and easily adjust the settings and get the desired effect. The created virtual tour can be saved on your computer or immediately published on an FTP server, for which you just need to specify the server settings. In this case, BMP image files will be converted to JPEG format with a user-defined compression level. In case of local saving, files will be automatically generated for autorunning the tour from the CD. To view tours saved in the program's native format, the Easypano Tourweaver viewer is required, while tours exported to Java Applet can be viewed as usual in an Internet browser.

360 Degrees Of Freedom Developer Suite 6.3

Developer: 360 Degrees Of Freedom

Distribution size: 19.73 MB

Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo that adds a watermark is available after registration at: http://www.360dof.com/survey/survey.php?dl=developersuite)

Price:$395

Work under control: Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

The professional virtual tour development package Developer Suite includes several applications, the main ones being 360 Image Assembler, 360 Panorama, 360.3D Project and VRbrochure Project. 360. The package has an intuitive, strict and at the same time convenient interface, and detailed documentation, supplemented with useful examples, reduces the time to master it. All this, combined with its rather modest (compared to many analogues) size, simplicity and ease of use, as well as ample opportunities for individualizing the result, allows us to consider the Developer Suite application one of the best in its class.

The Image Assembler module is an application for automatic, semi-automatic or manual stitching of individual images taken from any standard digital camera into 360×360 panoramas (Fig. 8). The 360 ​​Panorama application allows you to create simple virtual tours based on 360×360 panoramas (Fig. 9). The 360.3D Project module (Fig. 10) is designed to generate interactive three-dimensional models of objects, which are indispensable for demonstrating products offered by companies in interactive product catalogs, and at the same time can become one of the elements of a virtual tour.

Rice. 8. Creating a panorama in the Image Assembler environment

But the greatest interest in this regard is the virtual tour builder VRbrochure Project (Fig. 11), which allows you to combine photo panoramas and 3D models into a virtual tour with the formation of a connection between them through ordinary transition points. In addition to panoramas and 3D models, the tour may also include slide shows, animations, and interactive maps and plans. And for greater effectiveness and to add individuality, the tour can be supplemented with a variety of special effects (gradual appearance and disappearance, image scaling, flickering of certain areas, etc.), and you can choose a suitable graphic template and design style for it.

The resulting tours are easy to view and allow you to effectively present information about the property being sold to potential clients. Viewing of tours (both simple panoramic ones and those showing 3D models and presenting virtual brochures) is usually carried out in an Internet browser with a Java applet. However, when creating tours, you can additionally enable the option of creating a tour oriented to viewing in a flash player, which allows you to reach the maximum possible audience.

SP_VTB 4.10, SP_STITCHER 3.2

Developer: Spherical Panorama, Inc.

Distribution size: SP_VTB 4.10 7.94 MB, SP_STITCHER 3.2 11.7 MB

Distribution method: freeware (the latest versions of programs can be downloaded at: http://sp.zdt.ru/download_rus.php)

Price: free, use of ready-made panoramic images is paid for; cost of one license: $12 when purchasing from 1 to 9 licenses; $8 for purchasing from 100 to 999 licenses; There is a special discount for CIS countries

Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP

The Spherical Panorama company specializes in developing software for creating different types of panoramas and combining them into virtual tours, however, in our case, the most interesting are the image stitcher into panoramas SP_STITCHER (Fig. 12) and the virtual tour builder SP_VTB (Fig. 13). They are supplied as separate applications, but when developing virtual tours they complement each other, since SP_VTB allows you to create tours only based on panoramas in spf format obtained in the SP_STITCHER environment. Both applications are quite easy to use, and the accompanying detailed documentation, several fisheye stitching test kits, and a trial virtual tour will help you quickly understand the intricacies of the work.

SP_STITCHER fast automatic three-shot fishege stitcher, which can be configured to work with both standard panoramic equipment (IPIX, Kadian, etc.) and non-standard ones. This allows us to recommend this program not only to professionals, but also to ordinary amateur photographers. SP_STITCHER supports automatic and manual operating modes and, if necessary, allows for image correction: color correction, getting rid of barrel distortions, optimizing the position of seams in fisheye images, etc.

SP_VTB allows you to combine spherical and circular panoramas into virtual tours, supplementing them with background music, sound, text comments and special objects: static photographs, videos, flash videos, a tour plan, etc. You can use any images in jpg, gif, bmp formats with sizes from 100x100 to 800x570 pixels. It is possible to connect videos in avi or mpg formats, which will be played when moving from one panorama to another.

The process of creating virtual tours is not particularly difficult and can be mastered quite quickly even by non-professionals, and the ability to choose a graphical shell for it allows you to achieve originality to some extent. To take a virtual tour of a tour, which is an exe file, no additional software is required, since a standard tour browser is automatically built into the file. If necessary, you can use special virtual tour browsers, such as the SP_VST application, designed for real estate agents and providing various viewing options with different types of download, including Internet download, and the ability to use a configuration file.

IPIX Interactive Studio 1.4.2, IPIX Real Estate Wizard, IPIX i-Linker 3.1.0

Developer: IPIX Corporation

Distribution size: IPIX Interactive Studio 1.4.2 37 MB, IPIX Real Estate Wizard 9.13 MB, IPIX i-Linker 3.1.0 4.7 MB

Distribution method: shareware (limited demo versions available after registration at: http://www.ipixstore.com/dl/dldetail.cfm?detailid=7)

Price: IPIX Interactive Studio 1.4.2 depending on the licensing option (for example, a 1-year license with an unlimited number of panoramas costs $899; a complete list of license types can be found at: http://www.ipixstore.com/cart/ index.cfm?cat=3&subcat=13), IPIX Real Estate Wizard with five keys (additional keys sold separately) $20, IPIX i-Linker 3.1.0 $99.95, IPIX Multimedia Toolkit $99 .

Work under control: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Mac OS X 10.2 or higher

As applications for creating virtual tours, IPIX offers the IPIX i-Linker 3.1 and IPIX Multimedia Toolkit software packages, which make sense only in conjunction with the IPIX stitcher, since both applications are configured to use IPIX panoramas. IPIX Interactive Studio and IPIX Real Estate Wizard packages can be used as programs for stitching panoramas. All of these programs are easy to use and have detailed and well-illustrated documentation.

IPIX Interactive Studio (Fig. 14) panorama stitcher for professionals, which features a large set of convenient tools for precise stitching of hemispheres, retouching seams and entire panoramas. The IPIX Real Estate Wizard program (Fig. 15) is focused on use in the field of real estate trading and is intended for realtors. Even a child can create a panorama in its environment, but the capabilities of manual processing of panoramic images in the program are minimized to the limit, which negatively affects the quality of the created panoramas. To save panoramas, specialized paid keys are required.

The IPIX i-Linker application (Fig. 16) is used to create virtual tours based on IPIX panoramas for the Internet and CD, and is best used in conjunction with IPIX Interactive Studio. The program allows you to set the automatic movement of a virtual camera across a panorama, add background sound, highlight transition points and link them with hyperlinks to additional information (texts, photos, audio, transitions) and to other panoramas.

The IPIX Multimedia Tool Kit is used to quickly create simple template virtual tours and is also designed primarily for realtors, and therefore can be a successful addition to the IPIX Real Estate Wizard. The package includes three software modules: IPIX Brochure, IPIX TV-Studio and IPIX e-gallery. The IPIX Brochure module is a simple and convenient tool for generating simple virtual tours in the form of electronic brochures, which are posted on the company’s website and allow you to clearly present the necessary information about the company, technologies, etc. in the form of interconnected panoramas, regular photographs, text and contact information. IPIX TV-Studio allows you to create tours with simple navigation through iPIX images, including automatic movement, pausing viewing for a more detailed study of the image and scaling its individual sections. Watching the tour can be accompanied by playing a melody or listening to comments. The IPIX e-gallery module (Fig. 17) is designed to quickly generate simple virtual tours for sending by email. Tours are created using a template, and the tours themselves contain an IPIX image, contact information and a brief description of the tour.

Rice. 17. Creating a virtual tour in IPIX e-gallery