vREAL Tours Frequently Asked Questions
vREAL Tours Frequently Asked Questions
What are vREAL Tours?
vREAL Tours are high-quality interactive virtual reality scenes. The user/viewer can become actively involved in the scene by controlling the view to stop the image, navigate up/down and right/left with the mouse, and zoom in and out. The generic term for this type of immersive virtual reality scene is "virtual tour". They are made to be published primarily on the World Wide Web and viewed using a browser, but may also be published on CD-ROM's, or processed and packaged to be displayed stand-alone.
What are they used for?
Many businesses are using virtual reality scenes to enhance marketing and sales of products and services involving residential and commercial real estate, hotel and resort marketing and booking, architectural design and builder marketing, and event venue sales and services. There has been remarkable growth in the use of virtual reality images due to the growth of Web-based marketing, and the effectiveness of this type of photo image. You can convey the reality of architectural buildings and spaces to prospective clients and customers around the world without them having to make a visit. Due to the immersive nature of the images, it's the next best thing to being there.
They are also used as background images for creating video output from architectural rendering software. With a background of the existing contextual conditions surrounding a proposed project, very convincing and realistic video scenes can be created to show a proposed structure as it will be seen when placed within the existing environmental context.
The panoramic and individual photo images that comprise the vREAL World are also used for the same wide range of purposes as conventional photography. The vREAL World creation process can result in high-resolution photo prints and digital imagery for any media target in addition to Web delivery.
How are they made?
vREAL Tours are made from multiple digital photo images that are pieced together (stitched) to create continuous and seamless images. They may be complete 360-degree panoramas, or partial panoramas that are less than a complete circle. They vary in vertical height, depending on the lens used to take the photos, from a relatively narrow cylindrical view to a full height and width 360-degree sphere.
What sort of viewer or browser plug-in is needed?
vREAL Tours use Java applet viewer technology, and no special browser plug-in download is required. Java must be enabled on the browser, which is usually a simple toggle in the browser options settings. Some other virtual reality creation and viewer technologies require a separate download and installation of viewer software, but vREAL does not typically require any special downloads or installations. With Netscape Navigator, enabling Java may involve a download of what Netscape refers to as the "Java plug-in".
How is the photography done?
A digital camera is mounted on a tripod with a special panorama head to maintain an accurate rotation around a precise circle as the photos are taken. Artificial auxiliary lighting cannot normally be used for interior images because the lighting and exposure must be held constant from photo to photo for the stitching process to work properly. The result is a realistic and pleasing "available light" image. The lighting conditions found in interior images that also have exterior sunlight in the scene will often show the natural high contrast areas that result from this extreme range of light values.
What do they cost?
Costs vary depending on extent of coverage and number of scenes needed for a project, and the quality of the photography and digital processing needed. Costs are usually comparable to conventional professional still-image architectural photography, but vREAL Tours are more versatile and useful than still images for sales and marketing purposes in today's competitive marketplace.
Contact Michael Dakan at michael@dakan.net or phone 650.355.6573 to discuss the scope and cost of your project. Many types of public relations, marketing, and sales projects could benefit from using vREAL virtual reality and architectural photographic images, and can provide a positive return on investment.