360° photography and virtual tours, explained
Plain answers to the questions that come up before the first tour: what the format is, what the camera has to produce, how the rooms get linked, and what a walkthrough can and cannot tell a buyer. Written by the people who build PandaTour 360.
The one to read first.
Everything else in this section branches off it.
How to Make a Virtual Tour from 360° Photos
To make a virtual tour you need 360° photographs of each room, software that links them together, and a place to publish the result. Shoot one panorama per room on a tripod, upload them, drop a hotspot on every doorway so a click walks the visitor into the next room, then publish the tour as a single browser link. With the photos already taken, the linking part takes about ten minutes.
In this section
4
guides, each answering one question in its first paragraph. No newsletter, no gated downloads.
The rest of the section.
3D Virtual Home Tours: What They Are and How to Make One
A 3D virtual home tour lets a buyer walk a house in the browser. Two things are sold under that name — a scanned model and linked 360° photos. Here is the difference.
What Is a Virtual Tour?
A virtual tour is a set of 360° photographs linked so a visitor can walk a place in the browser. What it is, how it differs from video and 3D scans, where it is used.
Equirectangular Panoramas Explained
An equirectangular image is a sphere unrolled into a 2:1 rectangle. Why 360° photos look stretched, what resolution to use, and how to tell a good file from a broken one.
Reading about it takes longer than building one.
Three tours on the free plan. If the panoramas are already on your card, the first tour is an evening’s work.
No card required. Three tours on the free plan.