What is a
Virtual Tour?
A Virtual
Tour is not a slide show and it is not a movie.
It is a series of 360-degree still images warped in such a
way that it allows a viewer to be immersed in it. It gives
your prospective clients the opportunity to virtually step
inside your property from anywhere in the world.
What is a Spin?
A spin can be a unique location, area, panorama, or a room
within a tour. A tour is therefore made up of a number of
spins.
Do I need
special software to view your virtual tours?
You don't need any special software to view the downloaded
virtual tour.
To view the online virtual tour, you do need to have Java
installed on your computer.
Do you create tours
for uses other than real estate?
Absolutely.
We've done tours of commercial properties, golf courses,
fitness centers, resorts, hotels & casinos, trophy rooms,
scenic outdoor venues, wineries, and more.
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Not all tours are
created equal.
Although there is a myriad of software options available on
the Internet, there are basically two ways of creating
virtual tours.
The first is by using so-called Fish-eyed lenses.
This is a special lens that allows you to capture a
360-degree view with one shot.
It is the fastest method and gives you a full 360-degree
view of a room or location, but because it only uses one
shot, it has some serious limitations in terms of the
quality of the image.
One shot, means one light setting and one focus setting.
(This creates a problem when you have dark corners or
windows letting in sunlight.)
Another problem with fish eyed lenses is that they tend to
create an image that is so 'warped' that the viewer feels
like a fish in a round fish bowl.
The second method (the one we use) is called Stitching.
We take 12 normal digital pictures of a room or scene and
then 'stitch' them together to form a 360-degree flat
panoramic image.
The photography takes more time, but we end up with a
panorama consisting of 12 quality images, each with its own
appropriate settings.
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Why 360° Virtual Tours?
Simply, they are the only 24/7 Open House and nothing
helps sell homes faster!
Look at these awesome statistics:
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The Incredible Growth in Online House Hunting: 40
million wired Americans have used the Internet to
search for houses or apartments
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1.7 million Internet users sought housing
information on an average day in March 2000. Current
estimates are now around three million Internet
users are online on any given day searching for a
new place to live.
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Experienced Internet Users: 62% of Internet house
hunters have been online for over three years. Some
46% of broadband users have house-hunted online. And
58% of Internet house hunters are daily Internet
users.
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A survey in January 2002 found that 8 million
Americans who found new places to live in the past
two years said that the Internet played a crucial or
important role in helping them through that
transition.
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The National Association of Realtors found that 41%
of all home buyers used the Internet as a search and
research tool.
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