Urban CGI interactive virtual tours, maps and portals provide visualisation content for engagement, sales, training, education and presentations. We convert CGI 3D visualisation, animations, renders and visualisation into an easy click-and-play immersive and interactive platform for your team and your customers to access on desktop, phone or tablet. The features of the visualisation tool are growing all the time and we list some below for your information.

Our virtual tours are different as they offer full interactive 360º panoramic videos with clickable hotspots. These are not just static panoramas like Google Street View – with us, your customers can glide through your site or project, looking around in 360º glory and clicking on hotspots for extra information.

Our virtual tours also differ in the breadth and depth of features including the educational and training elements, including the SCORM and LMS links (see below), the innovative chat features and the total flexibility across all devices including VR. Other exciting features include animated panoramas so you can have animated characters talk to your visitors on clicking, all from their phones.

With 20-year company history and some of the biggest projects and clients to our name, you can rely on us to provide a wonderful product to meet your budget and deliver in a professional, stress-free manner with clear milestones and feedback.

What is an Interactive Virtual Tour?

Wikipedia describes a virtual tour in the following way:

“A virtual tour is a simulation of an existing location, usually composed of a sequence of videos, still images or 360-degree images. It may also use other multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, text and floor map”.

The link of 3D videos, 360 panoramas with hotlinks and clickable elements, multimedia and feedback / commenting elements for the community, stakeholders and shareholders to get information is a good summary.

However, the Urban CGI interactive virtual tour takes the technology further into the current and future state of a location to make it easy for stakeholders to understand the future state and how it will be across a precinct.

Our interactive virtual tour gives a rich multimedia experience based on map locations that can and often include incredible interactive 360-fly-through videos that a user can look around in a 360-degree fashion on their phone, tablet or desktop to see what the future will truly look like.

Our interactive virtual tours also include before-after sliders, hotlinks to other information embedded within the beautiful overview maps, 360 panoramas or 360-videos, and many other possibilities as listed below in the feature set.

Who purchases interactive virtual tours?

We have deployed interactive virtual tours for a wide variety of clients including training managers, infrastructure project leaders, corporate affairs leaders, construction companies and construction alliances.

The types of roles that engage us for virtual tours are communications managers, brand marketers, engagement managers, project directors, public affairs managers and directors, digital engineering managers, training managers, and learning and development managers.

What is the purpose of virtual tours?

Virtual tours have become so powerful and convenient they can be used for an increasingly wide variety of use cases, and these use cases can blend together.

For example, Google’s Street View is an example of a virtual tour with linked 360-panoramas from the general Google Map that is used by all of us every day to navigate our environments for uses from real estate sales to just checking the location to understand what it looks like.

Typical virtual tour use case examples include:

• Real estate sales – from interactive floor plans of houses to full-service virtual tours
• Virtual tourism – to experience new places in their best light
• Historic preservation – to experience historic and heritage places
• Virtual walk-throughs – to experience natural or built environments in multimedia
• Training and education – to learn competencies, topics, guides and to preview places
• Engagement – to inform and engage stakeholders on the future
• Inductions – to teach new routes or site changed conditions quickly
• Gamification – simple games like treasure hunts and quizzes to learn about a place.
• Products – demonstrate products from fashion to technology with hotlinks for information.

We have experience in deploying many of these use cases and often mix them into a single virtual tour depending on the client’s needs. A virtual tour can be both engaging, informative and educational.

How we deliver a Virtual Tour project

Our offer is broken into components for easy, low-risk and scalable production for you, the client.

Platform features setup and deployment

We get you quickly running with placeholder content by deploying the virtual tour platform framework and publish it to a private weblink for your testing and familiarisation. This phase focusses on core functionality, features and structure plus branding styles.

The process steps include:

1. Project initiation and framework development workshop with storyboard and site structure for complex virtual tours.
2. Virtual Tour Platform setup to setup new client and user access, passwords and deploy standard features as below.
3. Overview map or introduction screen setup with a placeholder overview screen from the CGI Digital Twin or Google Maps/Earth or supplied maps and aerial imagery or floorplans.
4. Build branded icons and skins to your brand and style guide and add branded hotspots (icons) with effects as hotspots. and links.
5. Link / hotspot with placeholder content from your existing content or supplied placeholder experiential content for each hotspot. Content can be videos, images, panoramas, 360 video, PDF or hyperlinks. Refine
   • Build out the logic flow of links and journeys for your review.
6. Deliver and review with access links and passwords for you to review the logic and content flow and let you play with the sequences.

Typical delivery – 4-6 weeks from approval with weekly project meetings for duration of phase for a functioning virtual platform with the features and placeholder content hosted on our hosting service as interim.

Overview Map or Intro screen of the Virtual Tour

We build and integrate a a high-quality overview map or model of your site or project. The map can be stylised or photo-realistic or a mix of both. The map/s can have one or several phases – such as the current vision, 5 year vision and 10 year vision.

We often suggest to build or utilise a 3D model of the site or precinct as this allows for a large number of view positions to be captured – such as a north, south, east and west view from set perspectives with handsome transitions between vantage points.

Some virtual-tours stay at the overview level without ‘zooming into’ ground-level views as it is more cost-effective and delivers the message. Some virtual tours do not have an overview map, but have an introduction image with multiple hotspots as a network map or other features. It is a creative open-ended process.

Overview cameras tend to be lower cost as requiring less ground level detail, depending on the project. Information hotspots, pop-ups, arrows and lines, boxes and shapes can be incorporated as indications of the future.

The overview map is updated iteratively as required to meet your specifications and level of quality.

Virtual Tour content development.

Build site specific content in a flexible and adaptable fashion such as 360 full rendered panoramas and panorama videos, 3D images, diagrams and drawings. We may build models and maps, import BIM models from digital engineering, add materials and quality textures, make 3D renders and process content into the virtual tour, build 360 panorama videos on set paths and use or update existing renders and images.

Our rates are market competitive, and we can match any quality and rates available in the market for ‘red-hot renders’ through to concept imagery.

Our professional and structured delivery approach means that the production process will be calm and managed professionally as compared to last minute unstructured delivery methods of others.

“My experience with the team was excellent. The team offered innovative products, professionally managed projects and delivered faster and at better value than similar projects with other firms. Highly recommended.”

Greg Akhurst, Director – Simulation Governance, Australian Defence Simulation and Training Centre.

API Development

API links and development are optional extras that can be developed in partnership with your team, especially important for sales, training and educational virtual tours and are a great value add.

1. LMS / SCORM / MOOC – link to your LMS (Learning Management System) and other database systems for training requirements to improve the RoI in inductions and training needs.
2. Property sales database – link to CMS. Creating a solution that provides available lots for sale or lease can be valuable as we’ve provided to property developers including a full links to custom CMS databases with complex password management controls. This capability requires detailed analysis of technologies, synchronisation timing and metadata formats .
3. Advanced Passwords / gated area development – simple or complex implementations.

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Examples and case studies

A set of examples of virtual tours and interactive maps deployed.

Mernda Interactive Video Virtual Tour

Virtual Tour as an interactive clickable video to give community viewers options to click on hotpsots and select extra information. Utilised on the project website and also for social media like Facebook.

We built the 3D render and flythrough for the project from CAD files and PDF inputs,, simulated the environment, and then provided a ‘choose your own adventure experience’ for the community to explore different options. A highly popular format used and clicked tens of thousands of times.

Future Streets Virtual Tour Sliders

See the client website here.

Using the famous Chapel Street, South Yarra Melbourne to highlight what an inner city street could look like under new scenarios with a

• Slow Lane – with a mix of shared automated electric vehicles (AEVs) and privately owned petrol/diesel human-driven vehicles sharing the road.
• Fleet Street – a rapid evolution where all vehicles are AEV driverless, shared, zero emissions and connected, requiring less visual infrastructure to guide them.

A highly successful web format that be enjoyed on any device instantly, the sliders and engagement tools were expanded across multiple sites and projects.

Gamification for Metro HQ Engagement

See the Urban CGI virtual tour gamification case study for Metro HQ here.

The solution, developed before COVID, is a hands-free, no-touch gamified visualisation tool inside the Melbourne Metro Tunnel community hub on the main street of the city.

The game has motion detection inbuilt with a 60” screen for a highly immersive and fun way to learn about disruptions in the neighbourhood. Ideated and invented by Urban CGI with scripting, setting, storyboard, sign-off and delivery – it is a major feature of the community hub.

Big Build Disruptions Map Portal

See the Victoria Government’s Big Build online map here.

A comprehensive mapping solution for Victoria’s Big Build projects to inform the community about disruptions across the entire network and all projects, including road, rail, cycle and pedestrian impacts.

At any one time, hundreds of disruptions may be occurring across dozens of projects, and this interactive mapping solution is the single source of truth for all of the Big Build projects.

In the Victorian Big Build project, with hundreds of projects across units and thus many different agents providing information, the password management systems were a complex management system with multiple layers and approval workflows for updating content and data via conditional parameters.

We were firstly engaged in providing only the back-end solution, but through the quality of our work, then won the right to provide the service for the entire application, displacing other providers with less reliable and responsive services and technology.

Melbourne Virtual Development Tracker

We built a 3D database viewer of the city based on aggregated maps and information from Google, open street maps, mapbox models, City of Melbourne DA database links.

We added a lovely interface and colourisation, with nice user experience with the zoom, rotate, click and links. This is a useful and lightweight way to see basic 3D model information on a flat terrain with approximated building and asset shapes for web deployment.

Adding hyper links to proposed buildings to draw out PDF data from a database. These solutions are low cost to deploy as they require no new information to be created other than an interface.

Virtual Tour for North East Link Project

See the Urban CGI case study link of the NELP virtual tour.

Our interactive virtual tour iMap for the $16b North East Link project combines location-specific information, imagery and video content to visualise an environment and its upcoming changes to it. The experience delivered great results.

NELP virtual tour: 16 million impressions in 10 months.

Our virtual tour maps turned complex project data into valuable knowledge – breaking down projects into engaging and informative overviews, with links to further detailed information.

Virtual Tours for Property Sales

Digital Map Tables

See the full Digital Map Table virtual tour case study here:

Virtual Tours on true 3D Digital Map Tables, essentially massive 60 inch tablets, gives the client and their customers a highly interactive and engaging solution with a legacy product that is enhanced and adapted as the company and communities develop.

The solution has a comprehensive backend toolbox available managed by passwords and access to stakeholders from the Sales Professional to the Project Development Manager and customers.

These tours are Australia’s leading immersive 3D interactive virtual tours for Australia’s largest housing property developer used to support the sales of tens of thousands of properties with immediate live 3D access to accurate land sales information.

Urban CGI is a trusted supplier to the major client, providing ongoing maintenance support as these communities grow and evolve with land parcels selling and designs changing.

“Impressed by the agility of the system to support updating of our sales collateral, this solution can update content via the web in a matter of minutes, as opposed to our previous solutions.”

Community Housing Sales Professional

Virtual Tours for Level Crossing Removals

See the full interactive map and virtual tour case study here.

Easy to use, informative and engaging media that gives your audience a true insight into the future.

Virtual Tours are effective visual portals that combine web tech and 3D multi-format imagery to links with extra content for a rich multi-media experience.

Immersive imagery  Multiple viewpoints with click-and-see tech. Web embedded and easy to use – no downloads or apps needed. True-to-future renders, 360 views and photo montages.

Hotspots – Click on objects inside the scene to discover information and details Link images or highlight objects in panoramas to work as clickable hotspots Assign hotspot actions such as: Open a pop-up detail image Open a 3D model Open a purchase window Open a multifaceted information window Open a website Download a file Play audio or video (360º and standard videos).

Packenham Interactive 3D Virtual Tour

A full 3D presentation tool based on Unreal Engine rendered locally on a GPU enabled laptop with a large 60″ screen used for senior executive stakeholder presentations to demonstrate the quality of design thinking and development. Also made available on a streaming AWS web service.

The virtual tool includes dozens of hotspots organised in a structured fashion across precincts and elements to support a professional presentation model.

The presenter can simply click on any hotspot with one finger and go to that location and tell the story in a fluid manner. Overlays and layers of information are available. The user is able to exit presentation mode and see any location to demonstration integration and interfaces.

Virtual Tour Panoramas for Light Rail

A 2-point panorama based Virtual Tour for the ACT light rail. 360-degree panorama with hotlinks to move between locations by clicking on the red circles, branded in line with the red trams.

Measurement in Web Maps of the Future

See the prototype working live here

One of the most popular features of our interactive virtual tours for property sales on Digital Map Tables is the ability to measure distances in the future state.

A common question asked is – “what is the distance from the house-land I am looking at to the school, or the park?”.

This easy-measure feature is available by default in our local virtual tours, powered by computers on site as part of the Digital Map Tables. But we wanted to make this live and online. Here is a prototype of the feature to “measure the future distance” plus a tessellated online streaming future vision map captured from 3D models made.

Virtual Tour for Construction Approvals

See the case study for the Arden Construction Handover virtual tour.

Converting BIM model information into a user friendly virtual tour for virtual reality for demonstrating materials and spatial layout with lighting in a construction handover context.

The use case for the virtual tour is provide clear information to the contractor’s client (the government) the exacting layout and materials for review.

Challenges included converting hundreds of gigabytes of data into a highly optimised virtual reality untethered virtual tour experience whilst the design was still changing and designers not providing a change management documentation of updates in very restricted timeframes with very bus clients.

Smart Watermark virtual tour

See client website

An interactive educational virtual tour on how to use water wisely in the home. This virtual tour with interactive video and hotspot information has been successful for many years on the smart watermark website to increase engagement, knowledge and change behaviours across the community on water usage.

Hawkstowe Interactive Video Virtual Tour

Interactive video virtual tour for Hawkstowe Station.

Major Road Projects Virtual Tours and Interactive Maps platform

Utilised across all significant upgrades for the Major Road Project Victoria, we provided dozens of interactive mapping tools and interfaces to assist with community engagement and shared understanding in a unified system and platform.

Any site could be viewed easily with interactive mapping tools, multiple layers of information, map or satellite view, clients can update information themselves for hotspots and add further imagery as required.

Adelaide Development Activity Tracker

TFNSW Corridor Projects Map

http://wgtmap.u-c.com.au/imap06/index.html

http://ucstudio.u-c.com.au/iTour/ElaraDemo/

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CGI Virtual Tour Platform Features

In 2022 Urban CGI upgraded our interactive virtual tour platform technology to best-in-class technology that allows ever more features, control and 3D 360º immersion across any number of sites, assets, components and places now even with richer lighting, audio, chat and immersive features.

3D virtual tours in VR or via desktop or mobile engage the senses, emotions, and cognitive functions of the brain, tapping into the most potent aspects of retention. Today, organizations across sectors—from manufacturing to customer service, airports to railways —are recognizing the value of interactive virtual tours and experiences, realizing the potential to positively impact their bottom line. 

Experience immersive 360º virtual tours, featuring 360º panoramas, 360º videos, embedded audio, videos, and images, and customizable floor plans. Enrich your narratives with multifunctional hotspots and interactive elements that your audience uncovers as they navigate the tour, bringing stories to life.

Virtual Reality – with or without VR goggles

The prospect of VR virtual tours for training or engagement may seem complex, and many are hesitant to invest in new VR headsets for their entire workforce or school. Fortunately, there’s no need for concern. Although VR headsets initially capture employees’ attention, over 90% of them actually engage in virtual tour experiences via desktop computers. This means you can easily conduct virtual tours on any device or system.

Our virtual tours need only be created once, and they will automatically be compatible with nearly any device – Mac, Windows, desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, and tablets (Android & iOS). Additionally, our virtual tours are fully compatible with VR headsets like Oculus Go or Quest. The virtual tour displays a goggles icon to indicate which hotspot actions are VR-compatible.

Virtual tour environments can be designed based on any setting, whether real, imagined, or a blend of the two. Utilize 3D modelling or 360º panorama images with 3D transition effects to create immersive experiences. Any type of visual content can be included such as a 360º camera, panoramic photographs, 360º videos, 3D animations, and images including CAD drawings and images – making a truly flexible and immersive experience to the level of detail required.

360° video with live clickable hotspots

Create dynamic 360º scenery in motion with 360º hotspots. Similar to 360º fixed position panoramas, we can place clickable hotspots inside 360º videos for your users to click on. This brings up information to explain or emphasize elements within the scene. With dynamic hotspots, we can also track moving objects as they appear, disappear, or change in size.

eLearning and eTraining features

Elevate your virtual tours into an educational and assessment platform with crafted discovery hotspots (“treasure hunts”), question or quiz cards, integrated scoring, reporting systems, and LMS integration. Coupled with the other features, your 360º virtual tour is transformed into a formidable instrument for delivering training that is safer, less invasive, and more scalable than on-site practice. 

Your users can experience realistic simulations of current and future state scenarios, environments, and locations while employing gamification and conditional actions to foster engaging competition among learners and reward them with badges as they acquire new knowledge. Virtual tour training solutions can include discovery learning, remote field trips, facility tours, training simulations, health and safety quizzes, hazard hunts or much more. 

Submerge your workforce in simulated scenarios for comprehensive preparation. Empower your corporate learners to thoroughly examine their new roles without disrupting ongoing work processes. Developing virtual replicas with VR and 360º simulations for training is safer, less intrusive, more scalable than on-site practice, and significantly more engaging than traditional PowerPoint presentations.

Virtual tours in training are gaining recognition as an influential learning technology in the modern workplace, poised to be a vital component in any organization’s corporate learning strategy. By integrating interactive virtual tours in training, organisations enhance the effectiveness of their training programs, fostering a more immersive, engaging, and impactful learning environment. Adopting virtual training not only elevates the learning experience but also offers a competitive advantage, positioning organizations at the forefront of innovation and progress in the rapidly evolving workforce landscape, and helping to retain and engage staff. 

Greater attention leads to improved knowledge retention, ensuring that the learning experience is more effective. Combining this approach with gamification introduces an inherent incentive for performance improvement. Industry learners can delve into new realms, overcome challenges, and earn rewards while simultaneously honing their skills, resulting in a more immersive and impactful learning experience. 

Virtual tour quiz cards

Quiz Cards enable you to assess your virtual tour participants at any stage during their exploration. These cards can be triggered by a preceding action, such as uncovering a concealed element in the scene, which then prompts the appearance of the quiz card asking the user to identify the element.

In addition to questions and answers (single-response or multiple-choice), a Quiz Card can accommodate a range of media formats, including video, images, 360º videos, panoramas, and 3D models, enriching the overall learning experience. 

Virtual tour scorekeeping

Integrate one or multiple distinct scores to assess various skills simultaneously in the virtual tour. For example, a score that tallies successful shots taken, elements found in time, or represents user “health”. Scores can be designed to accumulate or deduct points, which is particularly useful when combining a hazard hunt and quiz format, catering to diverse learning objectives. 

You can determine whether a question should increase or decrease the user’s score. Each response selected can trigger a distinct action, enabling you to guide a learner to different windows (based on their answer) that feature, for example, a video explaining their response. Alternatively, you can link questions together, opening one quiz card or another based on the answer provided, effectively establishing a conditional question tree to enrich the experience. 

Upon completing an interactive virtual tour session, your users can be presented with a score screen based on backend settings. The user can conveniently download their performance report as a .csv file or directly submit it to your Learning Management System (LMS) for seamless integration and tracking. 

SCORM-compliant LMS for training and education

The platform supports the creation of SCORM-compliant virtual tours, adhering to the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) —a set of e-learning standards and specifications that ensure compatibility between e-learning content and any LMS (Learning Management System). This enables you to incorporate virtual tours into SCORM-compliant online courses or a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).

Note:

• SCORM = Sharable Content Object Reference Model
• LMS = Learning Management System
• MOOC = Massive Open Online Course

Digital twin virtual tours

Leveraging 3D models within virtual tours can be an easy way to have a digital twin technology experience without needing any 3D skills. This approach involves integrating precise, true-to-life 3D representations of objects and environments into virtual tours, enabling users to easily engage in 3D spaces on any device with a single click with high immersive realism. The use cases span across sectors including architecture, tourism, real estate, manufacturing, training and education.

Interactive hotspots can be included on the 3D model, actions controlled by hotspots and skin elements, plus integration with other multimedia components for smooth navigation through the space with effects for lighting, shadows, animations, textures, and more.

Virtual tours within 3D models

A benefit of incorporating 3D models in virtual tours is the opportunity to present properties, products or other assets in an engaging manner. For instance,

• Architects can develop virtual tours of their designs, enabling clients to explore and experience structures as if they were already constructed.
• Real estate agents can develop virtual tours that provide prospective buyers with an accurate understanding of a property’s layout, features, and finishes before even stepping inside.
• Manufacturers can design virtual tours that allow customers to examine products in detail, including materials and internal components, prior to making a purchase.
• Educators can develop virtual tours of scientific or historical sites, allowing students to explore, learn, and interact with the environment in a manner unmatched by traditional textbooks or lectures.
• Researchers can create virtual tours of archaeological sites for more intuitive and efficient data analysis and study.

With the popularity of 3D scanning and photogrammetry, we can create accurate and immersive 3D experiences of 3D models and data of real-world objects and environments. Add our skills in 3D modelling and rendering the future from plans, designs, BIM and CAD inputs and you have a comprehensive virtual tour of before-and-after scenarios. Seamlessly incorporating existing conditions or future state 3D models into your virtual experiences will enhance and captivate your audience.

360° panoramas

We can build rendered 360º panoramas to include stunning 360º virtual tours of upcoming projects and the future state of environments. These tours can be enhanced with 360º stereo capabilities, providing a more immersive and realistic experience on VR headsets, if required.

If you utilise our digital twins and digital modelling, any number of 360º panoramas can be created from our 3D rendering pipeline at a low cost, compared to traditional static rendering methods.

Include high dynamic range (HDR) lighting effects with adaptive panoramas that adjust light and exposure based on the user’s viewpoint, delivering a more realistic experience. Adaptive HDR means automatically managing the variation in light levels within images – referring to the range of luminosity between the brightest area and the darkest area of that image.

360° panorama features

We can use rendered and/or captured (from photography) or even blended or photomontage panoramas that encompass a complete 360° view. We also integrate ‘partial panoramas’ into your virtual tours so that panoramas covering less than 360° simply rebound upon reaching either end.

When using captured photographic imagery from a tripod, we use (fixed or floating) tripod caps to conceal the tripod at the bottom of the panorama. This can be a space for your logo or a compass or other branding feature.

We customize the starting point of panoramas, the panorama rotation speed and inertia, as well as the interaction speed for visitors. We tailor the zoom-in and zoom-out limits on panoramas to prevent any panoramas from displaying in low quality or low resolution, to maximise the user experience.

Advanced panorama colourisation algorithms ensure a seamless panorama experience by calibrating and blending exposure, colour, and brightness levels among images and panoramas, resulting in a consistent and harmonious visual product.

Video animations within panoramas

Enhance your virtual tours by incorporating the ability to click on an object or a person within a panorama, and then that person can move and speak as an “animated panorama”. This is a lighter alternative to full 360º videos while presenting a more dynamic experience than static panoramas.

Animated panoramas provide an optimal method for informing your audience. Instead of merely opening an information window, the element itself—whether it’s a person or a product line — comes to life within the panorama upon being clicked. Thus you can offer animated 3D explanations or demonstrations from within the panorama itself, while the user can still navigate the 360 space.

Virtual tour live panoramas

Live panoramas can add dynamism to virtual tours by rendering or capturing the same location panorama over a period of time and utilising and stitching the panoramas together to create an immersive experience showcasing the passage of time to further reflect the atmosphere or create a time-lapse.

Connected panoramas via hotspots

Connected hotspots give linked panoramas of adjacent spaces, such as rooms. By clicking on a hotspot, the connected panorama will open, giving your audience the sensation of moving to the next area. This enables you to create a truly immersive walkthrough experience with animated effects moving between panoramas.

Hotspot visibility and interactions

Hotspots can be customised to be visible at all times or only when hovered over with the mouse. Similarly, define when the hotspot actions should be triggered – either on hover or upon clicking.

Enable users to hide or display virtual tour elements. For example, offer your audience the option to conceal all hotspots within a panorama for an unobstructed view. By clicking the button within the interface, hotspots can be hidden or revealed as desired.

Hotspot information pop-ups

Hotspots can include information windows that provide additional details to your viewers when clicked on or hovered over. These windows can contain text and multimedia, such as images or videos, making them perfect for showcasing specific points or objects within your panorama. Customize the appearance of the information windows by adjusting colours, size, font, and transparency.

Hotspot image pop-ups and website links

Hotspots can be configured to display pop-up images when clicked on or hovered over, offering a convenient way to highlight details without the need for textual information. This feature is popular in virtual tours for where users examine extra information for objects and specific elements.

Hotspots can also be set to open pre-set web pages and links to any further information to open in a new tab.

Customised corporate brand, skins and style elements

Personalize your virtual tours with your logo, corporate colours, headshot, or contact information to ensure the experience is on-brand for lead generation and marketing. Skins provide the framework of virtual tours, incorporating stickers, buttons, text boxes, and logos that overlay the interactive experience. Skins give your virtual tour a custom presentation that aligns with your style guide or corporate identity. We provide a graphic design and illustration service to create custom elements with a scalable templating system ensuring a unique yet efficient process for future growth.

Hosting service and website integration

Urban virtual tours can be seamlessly embedded into your website, using either your own hosting service or ours. Simply copy and paste the code into your webpage—no coding expertise is required. No additional software or players are required, ensuring immediate accessibility for all viewers.

Social media optimization

Your virtual tour can be shared on social networks such as Facebook, and you can be assured that the image, description, and text will be displayed in an optimal format to maximize exposure and engagement.

Optimised for all devices

Our virtual tours are universally compatible with PCs, Macs, tablets, iOS, and Android devices, without requiring any drivers or software. Our flexible skins let us design skins adaptable to users’ screen sizes and resolutions. Tours automatically detect the device being used, optimizing media quality and frame rate for a smooth, fast-loading experience.

Virtual tours are effortlessly accessible on any computer, tablet, or smartphone (Android & iOS) without requiring installation or plugins as well as both online and offline functionality, compatibility with VR devices gives a seamless viewing experience from one platform.

Mobile bandwidth optimization

An optimised version of your virtual tour can be provided when publishing to generate a smaller, bandwidth-friendly version, ensuring a smooth experience for mobile users without compromising quality.

Notes, chat and permissions

Virtual tour visitors can add notes and communicate with you through a published virtual tour. Using categories, profiles and permissions, you can have chat-like conversations, assign tasks and add media to corroborate your notes.

Notes can provide efficient feedback loops with your client or audience or even for project management of the environment. If this feature is enabled, users can add notes and start a thread according to their permissions and categories.

Notes are structured as a conversation string, which can include multi-media information. You can categorize notes and users to restrict and control access – for example, users with the “visitor” tag will only be able to create and comment on notes that carry that same label to keep tours clean and clear responsibilities. Users can enrich notes and comments with detailed photos or videos that simulate or specify the problem at hand and add photos, videos, audio, URLs and documents (word, pdf etc.)

Users that created a Note can also resolve and archive it when they consider it settled. It will then show with a symbol and other users can still see it but won’t be able to comment on it anymore.

Password protection

Virtual tours have access controls to maintain your privacy with password-protected tours. When using our service, can set a global password for a tour, granting access only to those who possess the password.

Maps, floorplans and compass

Enhance your virtual tours with overlaying maps or floor plans for improved orientation. Equip these with hotspots to enable users to navigate quickly between rooms or floors. A radar tool continuously indicates the user’s current viewing direction.

Offline and/or online virtual tours

Create virtual tours in formats tailored to your needs. Choose the online option to display tours on the web. We can also export your tour as a standalone player for offline, local viewing not reliant on internet speeds – such as for display centres.

Embedded photo albums

Complement virtual tours with high-quality still photography in the form of photo albums. This feature allows your audience to browse through the visually appealing aspects of a property or environment, similar to a catalogue experience.

Adaptive HDR panoramas

Adaptive HDR panoramas dynamically adjust exposure at each point, eliminating dark shadows or highlights. By emulating the human eye, this technology analyses the area you’re viewing and selects the optimal exposure in real-time, ensuring optimal visualization of every detail, and adding realism to your tours to make them more captivating.

Adaptive for multiple screen resolutions

We provide an adaptive interface that accommodates the browser or screen size, ensuring your layout remains responsive, whether viewed as a small preview or in full-screen mode. We can also use fixed-size skins for embedding virtual tours within existing pages, such as blogs or product websites.

Virtual tour auto-pilot

Virtual tour auto-pilot allows you to give your audience a fully guided tour showcasing elements and spaces in a prearranged sequence. Users can choose to take control and explore on their own at any time.

Within the auto-pilot virtual tour, we can define a path with waypoints that can be assigned actions that will be executed when the tour reaches the respective waypoint such as “play audio,” “open info window,” “play video,” or other media controls. These events can have set timers to automatically close windows or restart the auto-pilot tour after a period.

Immersive audio

Immersive audio allows for different sound files to be placed in areas of the scene. Create smooth transitions between sound zones, mimicking the way sounds are perceived from different directions, for a heightened sense of realism.

Embedded external content

Easily integrate external content such as Google Maps, booking systems, or YouTube videos into your tour, or access 3D models from platforms like Sketchfab. This approach allows you to utilize public resources and optimize your virtual tour file size by embedding externally hosted content.

Export to Google Street View

Publish tours directly to Google Street View, seamlessly integrating with your Google listing’s official information (e.g., phone, address, and reviews).

Virtual tours on Google, often the first point of contact, are an invaluable tool for familiarizing customers with your business. They can also positively impact search platform indexing and visibility, improving your ranking.

Auto-load from QR Codes

Your users can scan a QR code anywhere on your real site, for example, a campus facility or large project, and the link to the relevant 360º panorama will pop up. QR codes are essentially weblinks in disguise, and thus using the virtual tour weblinks can transform your customers or audience immediately to that location for engagement, education, feedback or understanding.