Best 360 Photography into Virtual Tour for Real Estate

[Brett Turner]

Hey everyone,

I’m Brett and have just joined the forum. I do property marketing here in Australia and after some advise on the best software to use for virtual reality tours using 360 photography. I’ve had a look around and 3D Vista seams the best to me. Does anyone already provide virtual tours to the real estate market? And if so what do they use (software & equipment)? Please.

[Francisco Toledo]

Check Matterport.com I use it in Brazil and is widely known in the US already. Let us know your impressions.

[Sam Rohn]

ptgui or kolor autopano for panorama stitching, and krpano, pano2vr, and kolor panotour for 360° virtual tours are the most common software choices of our members

you can find a list of hardware and software recommendations and tutorials here –

https://ivrpa.org/about-ivrpa/360-vr-photography-360-video-resources/

sam

[Brett Turner]

Hey Francisco,

Thanks for that. I have seen the matterport camera and what it does, I really like it but doesn’t have the details as 360 photography has. I am looking for something I can start doing now with the outlay for the matterport camera. I will more than likely end up buy this camera lol

Brett

[Brett Turner]

Hey Sam,

Thank you for the information on the VR tours. Have you heard any reports on the 3D Vista Pro Software? Is it any good?

Brett

[Craig Godfrey]

You might want to try roundme.com . You build your virtual world online, connecting each panorama using “portal icons”. You can also embed pictures, audio, video. etc. using info icons, more popularly known as hotspots. No virtual world software is needed, or need to convert it to flash or html5.

Craig Godfrey

Photographer and Virtual World Creator
Victory Virtual Tours / Berks and Beyond 360 Marketing
610-504-8285
http://roundme.com/@vvt
http://BerksandBeyond360.com
victoryvirtualtours@gmail.com

[Frank Cornfield]

Is roundme.com really a solution for professional use?

[J.C. Ramalho]

Dear Brett, for me, the best set of equipment and software, is the one that meets our need to execute our projects. I live in Joinville, South of Brazil, and work in the real estate market, recording Tours 360 of properties for sale. My tools are relatively simple compared to more sophisticated ones, but I repeat, it perfectly suits my purposes.

Equipments available in https://www.bhphotovideo.com/
* Body SONY a6000 = ILCE6000/B;
* Lens SAMYANG 7.5mm = SY75MFT-B;
* Replaces Lens E-Mount = FDX-TOUGH-EMOUNT-LT;
* WI-FI VELLO Remote Shutter = RWII-S2;
Equipments available in http://shop.nodalninja.com/
* F6228;
* F6120V;
* F3140;
Equipament available in Aliexpress https://goo.gl/ZEJoEq
* Tripod QINGZHUANGSHIDAI = Q1000C;

For Aerial PANOS:
* Drone DJI PHANTOM 4 with APP LITCHI;

SOFTWARES:
* Adobe LightRoom;
* PTGui PRO;
* KRPano;
* Adobe Photoshop;
* PanoTour PRO.

See some of my works in: http://zaer360.com.br/

This is my first post here in the forum, I apologize to the experts if I was very detailed.

Happy New Year to all with their families,
and that 2017 is a lot of PEACE and a lot of WORK for all of us.

RAMALHO, José Carlos
ZAER Imagens Aéreas Ltda.
+55 47 3028 3848
+55 47 99712 8008
tour360@zaer360.com.br
http://zaer360.com.br/

http://zaer360.com.br

[Ron Burgundy]

Hi,

For those looking for an alternative to Matterport, I have developed a software that allows you to create Matterport-like tours without a specialized camera. All you need is a 360 degree camera like the Samsung Gear 360. We can even do it with some DSLR cameras, but it requires a little more skill from the photographer. We are looking for early users and can offer it for free if you can submit high quality captures that we can learn from.

Check out my site – http://www.patchworkvr.com and email me at mc@patchworkvr.com if you are interested.

[J.C. Ramalho]

Hello guys,
Our work has won a new home. I invite everyone to visit them. http://zaer360.com.br/
I am coming to the public to thank Mario Carvajal of Colombia for his professionalism, offering free tutorials to create 360 ​​panoramas on his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuO1xux3iL813LIUPNenppQ .
Thank you so much for everything.

Jose Carlos, from JOINVILLE, SC – South Brazil

http://zaer360.com.br

[EYESPY360]

Hey guys,

This might help – EYESPY360 specialise in Real Estate Virtual Tours and have recently launched their Freemium model, so you can create free and unlimited tours with your 360-degree images really quickly and easily. Then once you publish your tour you get an iFrame Embed code and a URL so you can post your tour to your website or share the URL on social media and other websites.

Give it a go! http://www.eyespy360.com

[Xavier Rodriguez]

Hi, I am new, I am From Ecuador, I’m trying to do virtual tours for Real State companies, is really hard because the people here try not to invest almost nothing and sell a lot, so the real state companies don’t want to invest in virtual tours.

How much does a virtual tour cost? made it with a ricoh theta S camera and then uploaded to http://www.youvisit.com, how can you monetize your work?

Thank you very much for your tips.

pd: my website is http://www.viviendas360.com

[EYESPY360]

Hi Xavier,

EYESPY360 http://www.eyespy360.com have a Freemium option which will allow you to create free and unlimited tours for your clients.

However, if these Real Estate companies want to white label their tours with their own branding, we have Pro Plans which start at $34.99 a month for 10 published tours.

Please feel free to get in touch for more details.

Call us for free on 0800 999 5360 or email me at rebecca@eyespy360.com

[Shawn Choi]

You can try Cupix to create virtual tours. If you already have a 360 camera, that’s all you need to create true-to-life, very immersive virtual walkthrough to show around your properties.
It’s still open beta and feel free to try it for yourself.
Whatever created during the beta service will remain yours even after our commercial launch.

If you need more details, feel free to contact us at info@cupix.com

[Jennie Ross]

You might also want to try MLS-Delivery.com, simple fast and easy to use it provides a low-cost solution for Real Estate Photographers. 360°, Video, and Stills Immersive UNBRANDED Real Estate tours for syndication on the web

Jennie, The Happiness Wrangler
MLS-Delivery.com

[Jesse Casman]

The previous post mentioned MLS-Deliver.com. Their intro video has good specifics on using a 360° camera (in this case a RICOH THETA, but I believe the techniques apply more generally to real estate and 360° photography).

Short write up here: https://community.theta360.guide/t/ricoh-theta-for-real-estate-photography/2405

Direct link to video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBkdFcaziME

[Ara Parikh]

The OmniVirt VR Player with interactive hotspots has been used by many property marketers for their Virtual Tours.

It’s easy to use:
-upload your 360 photos
-link them together using hotspots to create your tour (you simply select where on the photo you want a hotspot. For example, place one on a door to indicate to a user to head to the next room)

Some other helpful links with tour examples:
– https://www.omnivirt.com/blog/best-uses-virtual-reality-vr-real-estate/
– https://www.omnivirt.com/blog/definitive-guide-virtual-reality-real-estate/

[Kuula]

Check out Kuula, it’s is a FAST and EASY way to build virtual tours.

You can link your 360 photos, add hotspots with text, images or videos, or simply just add text to your 360 captures, in minutes!

You can also embed them easily on other websites (example). Watch the video to see how easy it is, read the tutorial and let us know at contact@kuula.co if you have any questions :)

[theasys]

Dear Brett,

Theasys is a powerful platform for creating 360° virtual tours online. The panorama linking procedure is super fast and easy, while many tools offer you the ability to add hotspots, images, videos, info panels, sounds, etc or even live enhance your panoramic images.

And the best of all, Theasys is offered absolutely free of charge. You can try it here Theasys.io.

[pawan kalyan]

Useful post learned many things about real estate photo editing , it will be easy for me to use those tips in my work, thanks.

[Xavier Rodriguez]

I have been used a lot of web site to build virtual tours, like:

RoundMe, Kuula, youvisit.com, easypano and theasys.io

RoundMe have a cool thing, that you can pay a pro embed one time and you have the tour for life, but has no variety in hotspots.

Kuula as RoundMe in their pro accounts option, has cool stuff but those are gone the moment you don’t pay the pro account.

easypano and youvisit.com has no cool hotspot and has no transitions, but its free.

But the coolest and the best website I have ever seen, its theasys.io and Its free, it has so many things, so many options that I don’t even know how to used yet, always there is something new you can try, I can put my loco as a nadir so quickly and with one clic put it to all panoramas, also add an spin option and link it to my website, the transitions are cool and the hotspot too, you just have to try it. There is a help button so you can look for anything you need a little help.

Let me say something about Matterport, it is the most expensive cool thing but it not worthy. why? I will tell you why. the cost of production. You have to buy a 3,000 dollar scanner (because is not a camera), then a 150 dollar tripod, then an ipad pro (because if you don’t have it you can’t use matterport), then you have to pay monthly at least 40 dollars, for 100 models (each model of 200 spaces, that is not a lot by the way), then, for each model you have to pay 29 dollars or 19 dollar all depend which scanner you bought, if you have a job for more that a 200 spaces, matterport does not take responsibility if the 3d model is not fine.

Saying that, and making focus group of normal people, not photography masters, they are very cool with shoots took it with ricoh theta V and the virtual tour made it on theasys.io, they love it.

So, you don’t need an expensive camera to achieve your goal, you only have to learn how people can see your work.

Sorry photographers, but your cameras for virtual tour are not necessaries, are pretty cool, but not necessary. (hey, it just my opinion)

thanks for sharing.

Econ. Xavier Rodriguez

http://www.viviendas360.com

[ingo pless]

Good points Xavier.

[Xavier Rodriguez]

Hi, I do, and I think that http://www.theasys.io is better that 3d vista, see my post when I compare other websites.

[Ryan Ruttan]

I’m currently using matterport for real estate and business virtual tours for Google street view.

Matterport now has a quick upload to google street view that’s really nice and fast to use. The fees are high but they have a great service.

Matterport.com and my site is Star Air Vision

[Lew Wurdeman]

Hello one and all! I am new here and this is my first post. I have been shooting virtual tours since 2003 but have been inactive for awhile and am interested in some of my options for virtual tour making.

1. I want to “own” my tours, i.e. I don’t want to have them cloud hosted. Companies come and go and charge you tomorrow for what was free today. I would prefer building the tours on a PC and hosting them on one of my sites.

2. Since I am getting more senile by the day, I hope the program is not too complicated.

3. Needs to be able to accommodate a large number of 360s. I have a project I shot that is about 50 360s spread over a two story museum plus on the grounds surrounding the museum. Could end up with as many as 60 360s when done.

4. I don’t know that I need any sophisticated features. I want to have two floorplans, possibly three. Would like to connect from 360 to 360 to “walk around” the floor plan and be able to go up and downstairs.

5. Most of my older tours were Flash, and we know what happened there. I am guessing the current favorite is HTML5?

Over the years I have used a variety or programs, the two most recent being 3DVista and Tourweaver. I thought 3Dvista was fairly easy to use, but limited (at least in my older version) and I never was able to wrap my head around Tourweaver and actually hired a guy to build tours with it for me.

I use PTGUI to make the panos. I have a PhotoShop macro for the nadir but it only makes a mirror ball. Would like something with more flexibility and easy to use. I mainly use a D7000 with a Nodal Ninja and a Sigma 8mm lens.

Thanks so much for helping an old guy out :)

Have Camera Will Travel!

[Jürgen Schrader]

Well, if you already have used 3D Vista, what hinders you to check out if the current version matches your needs?
The software that certainly will do what you need is the latest version on Pano2VR.
There will be a learning curve, but where does one get a free lunch these days?

[J.C. Ramalho]

Dear Lew Wurdeman, it will NEVER be too late or we will be so old that we can not learn a little bit more. I use and recommend Panotour Pro, by Kolor. YES, Kolor was bought by GoPro and regrettably discontinued its development. Whoever works with Panotour Pro does not want another, he is the best, with the resources he provides us, we will still have good years of many good tours to build.
See a small demonstration: https://zaer360.com.br/tour360/OttoHouse/23295/
See other examples at: https://zaer360.com.br/imagenes-aereas-e-tour-virtual-360-graus-google-street-view/

If you understand Spanish, I recommend Mario Carvajal’s tutorials. Everything I know from 360 I learned from it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuO1xux3iL813LIUPNenppQ/videos
Good luck.
Jose Carlos, from Joinville, South of Brazil.

http://zaer360.com.br

[Lew Wurdeman]

You made a great point. It just happens I saw a YouTube video of the current 3DVista and it is totally different that what I was using. I used 3DVista from 2007 until 2014 and of course I should have realized the product would be entirely different now than in 2014. I did forget to mention that I used Pano2VR back in 2009 which I think I used only for nadir caps.

Regarding the free lunch, our minds work differently. Sometimes a program can be easily grasped while another program, maybe not so much.

Didn’t they say Einstein couldn’t tie his own shoes?

Thanks.

Have Camera Will Travel!

[J.C. Ramalho]

I’m sorry. The correct link in my Portfolio is:

Portfólio

http://zaer360.com.br

[Lew Wurdeman]

Thanks to you too Jose. I actually stumbled upon Kolor while doing my research prior to my message here.
Their site said the product is no longer being sold so I am unable to buy it, even if it was the best. Further, the web site and documentation is still online, however the site says:

“For support on Kolor products, the documentation and the Kolor support forum will remain open in read-only mode for the time being.”

For those who have it and love it, that is great, but doesn’t seem like a path I should pursue.

Thanks

ps: I lived in Panama for 2.5 years, I lived on the Texas/Mexico border for 11 years, took 3 years of HS Spanish, spent too many weekends in Juarez, and after living in Minnesota until 2012, I am back in a Spanish-speaking state, New Mexico. Does that mean I know Spanish…nope…but thanks…

Have Camera Will Travel!

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