Sunday, June 12, 2011

How Do Virtual Tours Integrate Into A Web Site

By Susie Strickland


Virtual reality is used to visit locations and buildings in virtual tours. This investment is good for all types of businesses. This is a popular tool among real estate websites. This is also useful for educational purposes. For example, the Seven Wonders of the World and the Louvre may be visited with these tours.

They are generally composed of several images. Many types of multimedia are added to enhance the experience. Music, text, narration, and sound effects may be among these. Generally, virtual tours are either photograph or video based media. Three different ways are used to produce these with photographs.

The first is Rectilinear Stitching. A digital camera is set up on a tri-pod. It is manually rotated, clockwise, 360 degrees. Every so many degrees a picture is taken. Whatever the amount of degrees is desired may be set. Using specialized software, the pictures are then stitched together. This creates a 360 degree view of the scene. The up and down view of this method is limited to about 50 degrees.

The second method is called Spherical Stitching. This method utilizes more expensive camera equipment. It also takes less time than the Rectilinear Stitching method. This is because a 360 degree, floor to ceiling view is created with only 4 shots. With the Rectilinear method, 8 to 12 shots are needed per view. Cubical Stitching is what the third method is called. This way the panoramas are stitched then converted into a three dimensional type box. This is how a 360 x 360 view is created. It is generally thought that this method is obsolete.

Video-based 360 virtual tours are available now. The popularity of these is increasing.

To assist with the creation ofpanoramic virtual tours consult a virtual tour provider. Assistance in integrating or embedding them into the website is also provided by them. Several different methods are used by a virtual tour business to integrate the tours into websites. Icons, hyperlinks, and thumbnails are included in these. To embed them onto the websites, they utilize HTML source code. To be taken on the virtual tour, the visitor simply clicks on one of these. To place the tour directly on the website itself, the virtual tour company may also consider using flash.

Keep in mind a couple other considerations. The browser used by the visitor watching must be up to date. The browser must support Javascript. This is a programming language. Javascript must be up to date and enabled. The browser must also be supported by Adobe Flash Player version 9.0.28 or better. Other times Apple Quicktime Player is required instead. All of these programs may be found free of charge all over the internet. The provider helping with the design of the virtual tour can also add links to permit people access to these programs. The client clicks on the link or icon. They are quickly directed to the site to download the program at no charge. Often, the visitor will have the required programs, but they have not been up dated. They are able to update them here as well.




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