Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Hi everyone ...
I'm a 360 panoramic photographer who also creates equirectangular images to produce full screen Flash / Quicktime virtual tours .
I'd like to supply hotels etc with the full virtual tour website package so wonder what is the best Virtual Tour Creation software on the market ? Ideally Mac based, but could use Windows on my Intel Mac.
I've seen Easypano Tourweaver 5 http://www.easypano.com/Virtual-tour-software.html (Windows) and 3DVista http://www.3dvista.com (also Windows) but wonder whether these are considered to be the best or are there cheaper / better software product on the market ?
Are they all Flash based or are there any that use HTML5 - so can be viewed on iPad etc ?
Ideally, I'd also like to be able to create floor plans and maps and use customisable templates.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks ...
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by 360icon on Tue, 2010-04-27 02:27.http://krpano.com
30 euros
Heres a link to a 45 scene tour i made using the KRpano player -
http://www.360icon.com/TheLab/Tour/index.html
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by rodedwards on Wed, 2010-04-28 11:54.Hi ! Thanks for your suggestion 360icon ...
I've seen some fabulous results with KRpano (yours included!) ;o)
However, I don't have much html or Flash knowledge so wondered if there was a good software that generates templates and can add Flash features easily - KRpano isn't quite drag and drop.
I use Pano2VR at the moment and it's great (like KRpano), but would like to add some fancy interface features to my virtual tours - scrolling thumbnail gallery etc.
Any other suggestions ? 3DVista's Publisher 4 looks pretty good, but wonder if anyone has experience of this or Tourweaver 5 (from Easypano) ? Which is best ?
Any further advice would be appreciated ...
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by Sam Rohn on Wed, 2010-04-28 18:49.have a look at flashificator, this is a GUI interface for authoring virtual tours using flash panorama player, however, FPP is kind of seemingly abandoned by its creator, an update is long overdue, but FPP is still quite capable and flashificator has a very strong community & an excellent responsive developer
http://flashificator.com/
krpano seems to have more of a future than FPP at the moment, & autopano giga includes a GUI for authoring krpano tours, autopano tour which is not yet avail as a stand alone product, but is supposed to be released on its own soon
http://www.autopano.net/en/photo-stitching-solutions/autopano-tour.html
no real html5 pano authoring tools at the moment, hopefully we will see these soon, i dont think iphone officially supports webgl yet anyway
you might also want to have a look at the panoguide forums, there have been a few conversations about each of these options
http://www.panoguide.com/forums/
sam
- - - - -
Sam Rohn :: 360° Panoramas :: www.samrohn.com :: Location Scout :: www.nylocations.com :: New York City
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by rodedwards on Wed, 2010-04-28 20:09.Thanks for your suggestions too Sam.
Funnily enough, i saw you website the other day and thought how well presented it was. Fine work ;o)
I have been looking at KRPano, Flashificator and Autopano products, but yet again, it seems i need some degree of scripting skills to get the results i would like.
I'm also very much hoping that Adobe & Apple sort out their dispute over Flash support on the iPad. My guess is that Adobe will have to improve Flash performance on the Mac to get this hardware supported. I don't know whether HTML5 virtual tours will offer improved performance on their Flash counterparts ... i guess time will tell. Right now though, I feel Apple are letting us down and being difficult. By not allowing web users to get the full online experience, they are not delivering the fully rounded internet product that we all want.
Will take a closer look at Autopano products ... they do seem to be on the ball and KRpano does look nice ! ;o)
Thanks for your help guys ...
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by Doug Aurand on Thu, 2010-04-29 15:19.Rob
Currently there's not a Mac version of Tourweaver, but they've announced one will be coming soon
For hotels, I've found that most prefer to host the tours themselves so they only need the image file itself or very basic working webpages they can modify and incorporate into their website.
For the "basic webpages" I've found that Pano2VR works great. It generates the Flash .swf file, a webpage .html file and the Javascript .js file needed to get it all to work well.
This works great for independent hotels with their own websites
Here's a "sample/proof" tour for a Dallas, TX hotel and their website with the tour. Note that their webmaster has used a dynamicly produced "light box" rather than a fixed html file to display the images which causes a problem with the full-screen viewing
www.vabq.com/mcmdallastx/index.htm
(I made the index page and modified the image pages a little with MS FrontPage)
www.MCMEleganteDallas.com
The major chain hotels prefer to host the images to. Marriott, Hilton, Starwood (Westin/Sheraton), InterContinental, etc all host the images themselves
The only case where I may host a tour is a hotel with a limited budget that I may let make installments to pay for the tour. In case they stop making the payments or as a consequence of late payment, I would have the option of "turning off" the tour
I use Tourweaver 5 Standard to make real estate tours. Linking to the tour is the commonly used method in the US Real Estate Industry
Hope that helps
Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by rodedwards on Sat, 2010-05-01 07:55.Hi Doug, thanks for taking the time for such a comprehensive reply ... some really useful info.
I've been in touch with Pano2VR and i understand they are working on an HTML5 output version of their software later this year. It's already a great product that I use, shame they don't allow you to make custom html templates too. Maybe soon ... :o)
Still not sure about Tourweaver 5. Will download a trial version as soon as my Mac Parallels arrives with Windows 7 next week.
Once again, thanks for everyone's input.
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by Doug Aurand on Tue, 2010-05-04 14:54.Rod
I'm not sure how valuable an HTML5 output will be in short term.
Microsoft has announced MSIE 9 (the most popular browser) will support HTML5 but only on Vista & Win7.
There won't be a MSIE 9 for XP
So until all those XP machines are replaced, the biggest benefit might be that virtual images will play on the iPhone & iPad, but you'll need a second version of a tour for desktops & laptops and the rest of the world
Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by Arno on Sun, 2010-07-04 21:04.I'm also using pano2vr for my 360 movies. Pano2Vr is pretty good and the software is very user friendly!
A little while ago I looked at some other software for the mac, but pano2vr seemed to be doing a pretty good job.
Some 360 images can be found on my webiste:
http://www.360promotion.nl
Arno
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by Kostya on Mon, 2011-02-14 13:56.Hi!
Then I was chosing pano player, I thought between krpano, Tourweaver and FPP. I started my tour creation with Tourweaver, but then changed it on krpano. Tourweaver has drag&drop GUI, but don't has polygonal hotspots and quality of pano view in krpano is better(in my opinion, also see comparison of viewers - http://www.panoramaphotographer.com/comparisons/). FPP+Flashificator is a very good product with GUI, but also didn't have polygonal hotspots and it was important for me. So, I chose krpano and I am using it now.
The popularity of krpano is growing now very quickly:
GUIs for krpano was appeared not so far (in 2010), but they are active developing now. Except of Autopano products (Panotour - http://www.kolor.com/panotour-software-virtual-tours-360-home.html) there is web-GUI for krpano - Tourmaker (http://www.makevt.com, realised in the beginning of 2011, I am the member of it's developer team). We are monitoring in forums users needs and trying to make service, which satisfies their wants.
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by easypano on Mon, 2010-07-05 08:10.Tourweaver for Mac has just released. It is not totally the same with Windows version, but soon will be. New features like swf tour and Flash thumbnail are supported.
Welcome to our website: www.easypano.com and www.tour-hosting.com
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by voyager360 on Wed, 2010-10-27 00:06.We had a lot of photographers ask us about iPhone and iPad tours and Flash full screen tours last year. So we built a brand new web-based server that lets you create these. It's called VPiX HD and it's new from Voyager.
You can visit our website and test it FREE for 2 weeks. No credit card. But you will need to EMAIL ME and ask to turn on iPhone iPad tours or VPiX 2 Go -- where you can save your tours in Flash HD and then export them as SWF to host on your own server.
Anyone from IVRPA will get a sweet discount if you mention you saw this on the IVRPA forum.
Beverly Kinnisto
Voyager International -- Virtual Tours That Don't Suck
http://www.voyager360.com
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by sydneyvirtualtours on Thu, 2010-12-23 17:14.Have a look at the link below
Detailed article discussing virtual tour and panorama software for mobile devices using HTML5
ptgui-version-9-0-now-includes-a-combination-flashhtml5-viewer-for-360-images
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by CLisinski on Mon, 2011-07-04 15:54.A client of mine was certain they had to have an html5 virtual tour product and I looked all over for one that would fit their needs without breaking the bank. I landed on http://www.realtourvision.com/virtual_tour_software.html
That page shows old software I think because I've never actually seen a screen like that to date and the process they trained me on to make a tour is inside their site. The system seems to work ok on mobile platforms however the end tour is not the same as you see on a computer. Probably more geared towards me doing more than one tour but at the end of the day my customer is pleased with the results and it did not take me forever to deliver. The kr-pano and easy-panos look really good too. Happy to be here and see all this info!
Chris
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by RealTourVision on Fri, 2011-09-02 18:56.Yes Chris our mobile virtual tour is a combination of HTML5 and Javascript. We've got a brand new virtual tour platform that we'll be release shortly. Soup to nuts a 100% rewrite that will take us to the forefront of VT technology. That page does indeed show our older interface and much has changed. You can see all of our current technology in our virtual tour gallery here: http://www.realtourvision.com/tourdemos.php All of our output is now in High Definition and is mobile friendly as of 2011.
Have a great Labor Day Weekend everyone!
Yours sincerely,
Jason
Jason LaVanture
http://www.realtourvision.com/vr-software.html
866-947-8687 Ext 4
Jason@RealTourVision.com
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by tourweaver7beta on Tue, 2011-11-01 10:18.Hi
Tourweaver7 is released and it is more poweful and easy to use. Free trial version is offered to dowanload while valuable suggestions will be appreciated!
New features worth introducing are 3D Object,Google Street View, Loading video, Gigapixel panorama, Sharing function with friends on Facebook, as well as more features in HTML5 tour for iPhone & iPad.
please check it now.
What new in tourweaver7
Tourweaver7 beta download !
Added features :
Google Maps Street View
3D Object
Sharing function on Facebook
Gigapixel panoramas
Loading video
Adding perspective transform image in scene
Output HD video with flv format
Adding Action from Right-click menu
Open player API
Open online video in Popup Window directly
Multi-language virtual tour
Customizing polygonal hot spot in Google Map
New features in output HTML5 format
Support cylindrical images
Support pop up window
Support movie
Support customizing button position
Modified transition effect of scenes and popup window
Support adding scene viewer in popup window
Support Google Maps Street View
Re: Best Virtual Tour Creation Software
Submitted by tourweaver7beta on Fri, 2012-01-06 17:34.Hi
Now it is Tourweaver7.
Tourweaver7 is a great virtual tour making software .You can make great virtual tour without know any thing about HTML5 ,flash code and other plugins .Tourweaver7 has done for you, what you need is creative idea and great panorama.As the industry leading virtual tour software, Tourweaver 7 makes a great step forward by supporting Flash 11 Player Engine, 3D object, Google map street view, multilingual tour, as well as tons of features inherited from its predecessor. With this version of 360 virtual tour software, you can share your virtual tour onto your Facebook account and you can also publish HTML5 virtual tour for your iPhone and iPad. Full featured free trial version is also provided as usual.
Gallery :http://www.easypano.com/virtual-tour-gallery.html
Free trial version download :http://www.easypano.com/virtual-tour-software.html