| By :
Dirik Hameed
Virtual tours use virtual reality to allow viewers to visit locations and buildings. This investment is good for all types of businesses. This tool is highly favored among real estate websites. This is also useful for educational purposes. For instance, there is this type of tour of the Louvre and the Seven Wonders of the World. They are generally composed of several images. Numerous types of multimedia may be added to enrich the experience. These may include sound effects, text, narration, and music. Virtual tours can be video or photograph based media. To create photographic tours, one of three ways is used. Rectilinear Stitching is the first. A digital camera is placed on a tri-pod. It is manually rotated, clockwise, 360 degrees. Every so many degrees a picture is taken. The amount of degrees may be set as desired. The pictures are next stitched together using specialized software. This produces a 360 degree view of the location. This method has a limited up and down view of about 50 degrees. The next in line is referred to as Spherical Stitching. This method utilizes more expensive camera equipment. It also requires less time than the Rectilinear Stitching technique. The reason for this is only 4 shots are required to produce a 360 degree, floor to ceiling view. The Rectilinear method needs 8 to 12 shots per view. The third method is referred to as Cubical Stitching. A three dimensional type box is created from stitching then converting the panoramas. In this way, a 360 x 360 view is produced. This third method is thought of as outmoded. Video-based 360 virtual tours are available now. These are becoming more popular. Assistance is given by the virtual tour provider to create panoramic virtual tours for websites. They also assist in integrating or embedding them into the website. The virtual tour business uses several different ways to integrate these tours into websites. These included hyperlinks, thumbnails, and icons. HTML source code is used to embed these onto the website. The client clicks on one of these and is automatically taken to the virtual tour. 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 being used must support Javascript. This is a specific 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 are widely available on the web and are free. Links may be added by the provider assisting in the creation of the virtual tour to allow visitors access to these programs. The client clicks on the link or icon. They are immediately taken to a site to download the program free of 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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