Blog & NewsHow To: Creating 360° Virtual Tours
The growing demand for 360° virtual tours has led to a onslaught of new software, hardware and professional services. Although there are a variety of uses for these tours, real estate stands as one of the top markets that consistently use them. Before I get started on how to create one, I just want to clear up the term “virtual tour” itself, as it is often misinterpreted. Virtual tour can be used to describe three main types of photo-based, web applications:
1) Virtual Tour Slideshows: A progression of still photos usually accompanied by music. This type of virtual tour comes standard with all Point2 Agent memberships.
2) Panoramic Virtual Tours: A seamless latitudinal image that allows users to freely pan along the horizon, but with restrictions on longitudinal tilting.
3) 360° Virtual Tours: A fully seamless view of a scene in all directions. Users can pan, tilt, and often zoom around a virtual space.
For simplicity’s sake, I will be focusing primarily on the 360° virtual tours for this tutorial. Please note that the tutorial will be best suited for those with an advanced photographic skill set.
Hardware Needs (Recommended):
- Digital SLR camera
- Ultra-Wide Angle Lens (Fisheye Lens)
- Tripod with Panoramic Tripod Head (i.e. Nodal Ninja)
Software Needs (Recommended):
What are we creating?
Although all virtual tours have some dynamic element (i.e. autoplay, panning, tilting, zooming), they are all created from static photographs. In order to create a 360° virtual tour we need to create an equirectangular photograph, or a single photograph that captures one area in all directions. An equirectangular photograph is the result of stitching numerous photos together in a precise way. There are other types of photos that essentially do the same thing – here’s an example of one, 360° photo processed in three of the most common ways:
Although all of the images appear different, they all essentially do the same thing: display a seamless, 360° view of a single scene.
How to Create an Equirectangular Photograph?
The most common way to create an equirectagular photo is by combining eight of more shots by stitching them together using specialized software. It’s not as easy as shooting a room in a bunch of different directions though – there are some rules that need to be followed.
Nodal Ninja Tripod Head
First off, the camera has to pivot perfectly on it’s nodal point, or a point within the front lens element. I recommend using a Nodal Ninja tripod head to assist with this process as it is less expensive than the alternatives, but built equally as well. To ensure that you are pivoting on the nodal point, use Alain Hamblenne’s grid method available as a pdf here.
Once you have your camera positioned correctly, you’ll need to shoot 6+ shots around the horizontal axis. The Nodal Ninja includes an array of “detent rings” which allow the camera to click into place at perfect degree intervals (i.e. one click every 60°).
Next, you’ll need one shot straight upwards, and two or three straight downwards (the nadir) at different positions depending on the tripod and/or floor material.
Be sure to level your tripod, and maintain a consistent focusing distance and depth of field. Ideally, you should try to minimise depth of field by closing down your aperture. I also recommend focusing to infinity whenever the scene allows for it.
How To Combine Your Photographs:
Before stitching your photographs into an equirectangular image, open up the nadir shots (straight downward) and merge them in Photoshop using a layer mask to eliminate as much of the tripod as possible. If you shoot one nadir shot handheld, at an angle, or with a lateral tripod arm you can usually get all of the detail you need to completely edit out the tripod from the photo. Some tours just add a logo or contact information in a circle at the bottom to block out the tripod – sample. It’s your choice.
Once you have a suitable nadir shot, load all of the images into PTgui Pro, and align them using equirectangular projection. If the nodal point was spot on, the images should align seamlessly without parallax distortion. Export the image as a high quality .tiff file and make any levels/contrast/color edits required in Photoshop. If there’s some finicky edits that need to be made, I recommend loading the equirectangular image into Cubic Converter, and exporting it as cube faces. The cube faces will be easier to edit as the images will not be subject to so much distortion. When you’re finished, Cubic Converter can also reconvert the cube faces back to an equirectangular image, but it’s not entirely necessary as Pano2VR can accommodate either type of image.
Processing Your Equirectangular Image as a 360° Virtual Tour:
Advancements in Flash and Java development have led to a massive increase in potential features that can be included in a virtual tour. You will undoubtedly find some amazing technological feats if you spend some time scouring the web. To keep things simple though, I recommend using Pano2VR as it offers a simple overall work flow with easy-to-use features. With a few clicks you can change your viewing parameters, metadata, add hotspots, customize the skin and adjust the size/compression. For most real estate agents, these features are all you really need.
Most of the settings are pretty straight forward. Before exporting a tour though, it’s important to consider a couple things: How much physical space (dimensions) do you have on your web page for the tour? How fast will it load, and does it need to be compressed?
I recommend exporting your creations in Flash format as most people will have a updated flash plugin for their browser. Pano2VR will spit out a neat and tidy .swf flash file that Point2 Agent Professional and Premium members can upload onto any web page.
Additional Information:
In my online viewing, I’ve found Rosauro Photography’s tutorial to be the best on the web if you require a more detailed overview. As far as services go, Australia’s Pixelcase leads the charge for overall excellence in image quality and Flash development. Automated systems exist too, like Giroptic’s panoramic vision camera. The result will appear more like a panoramic tour than a 360° virtual tour though, as it uses a mirrorball to record the raw image which inherently blocks out sections of the shot. No big deal, except that users will be limited to about a 110° longitudinal viewing angle.
As mentioned before, there’s an onslaught of new technology available, and it’s impossible to discuss it all. That should provide a decent overview for the time being. Feel free to share anything else in the comments area that I may have missed.
Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Websites, Web Technology | Bryan | August 12, 2009
360° Virtual Tours, equirectangular, listing photos, marketing, photography, Point2 Agent, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate photography, software, virtual reality, virtual tours
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Awesome post Bryan, but you forgot to mention that you’re available to create virtual tours for $300/hour.
Let’s not forget that my virtual tours also include my own, homemade renditions of Bon Jovi’s greatest hits – you can’t get that anywhere else.
[...] How To: Creating 360° Virtual Tours [...]
thank you for a great post, I really hadn’t considered this application at all, I am hoping to implement this as soon as I can for some of my own clients, thanks.
thank you for a great post, I really hadn’t considered this application at all,
Actually please check flash tool to create virtual tours for free and you may embed them right into your web pages. You can specify photos, hot spots, voice files – very nice tool.
Thanks heaps for this, the best help iv’e found. Is it a requirement to have a Fisheye lens?…or can I use a standard lens and just take more photos at different angles to stitch together?
Hey Danny, you can essentially use any lens you want, although the higher the focal length, the more shots you will need to take to capture the entire scene. If you decide to use a “standard lens” just keep a couple things in mind:
1) The more images you have the harder it will be for your computer to process/stitch the final image. Ensure that your computer is powerful enough to complete the task.
2) The more images you need to take increases the margin for error. An out-of-focus image or a slight bump to the tripod may require you to reshoot. Just take extra care and attention that your rail settings are correct on the pano head for your lens, and that every shot is sharp.
Best of luck!