360 Virtual Tours – The Virtual Tour & Panoramic Photography Co.

Our Virtual Tours produced for Fenchurch International go live…

We’ve blogged about the Fenchurch project before, and as we’re not ones to let a blogging opportunity pass, we’re doing it again!

Fenchurch International have recently updated their website with virtual tours of both their Cardiff, and Covent Garden stores.   We produced 2 cracking Hi Res full screen tours that really do a great job of showing Fenchurch’s fans all over the world what it is like to step inside a Fenchurch Concept Store.

To view the Fenchurch Virtual Tours either visit the website at www.fenchurch.com or visit our portfolio!

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We’re launching our ‘Little Planet’ commissions, your world in miniature!

We love our ‘Little Planets’, and we know you’re going to love them too!

We’ve been creating our stereographic images on the side (don’t tell the boss!) for a while now, and feel it’s time to shout about it and offer it as a service!  These images are created from a full 360 degree panoramic image, and manipulated in our software to give this fantastic ‘little planet’ effect.

They are proving popular as art pieces, they look good and they show off your location in a unique way.  When displayed as a 10 ft long installation above your reception desk, it will really give the wow factor to those meeting you!

Want your own little planet art work for your business?  Contact us on 0845 301 0865 to discuss your commission.

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Virtual Tours and stills for Fenchurch International

We’ve just completed another virtual tour project for Fenchurch International, this time for the concept store in Covent Garden.  This is the second virtual tour shoot for the clothing brand, the first one featured their newly opened Cardiff store.

HDR photography was used to avoid blown out windows and provide a nice even tone throughout the images.  A total of 4 scenes were produced, giving visitors to the tour a complete view of the Covent Garden location.

To view the Covent Garden 360 Virtual Tour, click here.

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Virtual Tours on the Apple touch devices

We’re very excited to now be able to offer you 360 Virtual Tours that are compatible with Apples touch devices!  This includes the iTouch, iPhone and iPad.

Click here to test the tour on your Apple device!

Why are Apple touch devices different?

There are several reasons why Apple touch devices don’t support regular flash files.  The main reasons are processor speed and battery life.  Apple touch devices are small, light and portable.  Although this is perfect for on the go and mobile browsing, they can’t handle the types of tours that play on regular home computers and laptops/netbooks.

We can now supply versions of your tours specifically made for Apples touch devices, meaning your website visitors who are using these devices will still be able to view your location.

Read more on our iPhone/iPad virtual tour page

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Victoria Hall take their online marketing to the next level.

Victoria Hall run a number of properties all over the UK and Europe specially designed for student living.  Victoria Hall understood that students are now demanding better means of experiencing the accommodation on offer before they pay a visit.  Standard photography just isn’t enough, and moving video can’t immerse you like a virtual tour can.

One of the features of this tour is the ‘rooftop’ view, giving completely panoramic views over the whole of Wolverhampton.  Info points were included throughout the tour to show visitors the main features of the accommodation, and in the view above, the local area.

What Victoria Hall thought

The staff at Victoria Hall were so delighted with the results, we’ve now been commissioned to produce tours for their other UK locations.  Darren Ashfield, Assistant Manager at the Wolverhampton site gave us this kind feedback:

“We couldn’t have picked a more professional company to complete our Virtual Tour.  The quality images and result is brilliant, we would highly recommend this company to anyone.  Thank you to the staff for the excellent advice and professional service throughout the entire process.”

Fancy a tour for your location?  Give us a ring on 0845 301 0865.

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We’ve been commissioned to produce virtual tours for 16 of Sungard® Availability Systems’ UK sites.

Sungard® Systems are pioneers of the information availability arena, and have been around since 1978.  They can provide over 12,600 end user positions in various locations around the UK , the total square footage is over 1,000,000!

We’ll be producing virtual tours for 16 Sungard® locations over the UK to replace their current, dated tours.  These will be shot over the next few months, so we’ll have a busy start to the summer!

Keep an eye on our Portfolio and Blog sections for news on this project.

Fancy virtual tours of your own? We supply tours to everything from small B&B’s to large multi national organisations, like above.  Give us a ring on 0845 301 0865 to discuss how virtual tours can help you!

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Top University tours coming soon…

Centre for Nanoscience & Quantum Information

We’ve just completed a shoot at this fantastic facility, and can’t wait to get them online for you all to see.  A selection of tours have been shot to show the impressive facilities including several labs, the impressive entrance foyer and even a view of the plant room, where the machinery is mounted on springs to reduce vibration!

State of the art, and we intend to get that across…

The facility is one of the most advanced of it’s kind in the world.  It has been built to have extremely low vibration and acoustic noise levels in order to allow accurate research across a range of disciplines.  We will be working with the centre team to produce a tour that not only shows you the environment, but also allows you to explore further with information hot spots.

While we work hard getting the tour ready, why not visit the website and take a closer look at what they do? Visit Site.

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Why we have a love of flash….

Flash & Virtual Tours

Most people don’t pay much attention to what format virtual tours are provided in, but in reality it should be one of the first things you should ask when finding a virtual tour company.

Virtual tours come in a range of formats.   The aim of this blog post is to explain the difference between them, and explain why Flash is the best format for your virtual tours.

Back in the day…

10+ years ago when virtual tours were pretty new on the scene, the most popular formats were Java and Quicktime.  Both are simple formats that offer a basic, and in the case of Java, low quality virtual tour experience.  Each of those formats required the user to have a specific ‘plug in’ installed on their computer, and as many people didn’t have this the majority of users didn’t stick around to see the tour.  The result was a tour that only a fraction could experience.

Times thankfully moved on, and technology also moved at a rapid rate.  Adobe launched their ‘Flash’ application for viewing online media and people loved it.  It allowed the user to experience things on a different level, and also allowed a level of interactivity that had not been seen before.

Luckily the virtual tour industry realised that flash tours were the future and a number of flash development programs focused specifically on virtual tour creation emerged.

So why Flash?

Using flash to produce virtual tours allows us to be a lot more creative.  Here are just a few of the features we can build into our Flash tours:

• Interactive hot spots to navigate between scenes
• Information tabs that contain specifically targeted sales copy or educational text / images.
• Sound or even moving video in the tours.
• Thumbnail or floorplan navigation.

The best thing about Flash is that 98% of computers have Flash enabled.  This means there are no awkward plugins to install, no error messages and no blank spaces where the tour should be.

Do some companies still use Java and Quicktime?

Yes.  Unfortunately there are still virtual tour providers using these now dated formats for their virtual tours.

Here at 360 Virtual Tours, we provide all our projects is Flash format!

Always make sure you’re up to date!

Although older versions of Flash will run fine with our tours, always ensure you have the latest version on your computer.

To find out your version and to update, visit Adobe here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

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