Frequently Asked Questions

A virtual tour is a simulated first-person view of an environment, usually indoors. They allow your potential clients and customers to view and engage an immersive, high resolution and photorealistic walkthrough of your property or space.

360° tours are composed of a sequence of “flat” panorama images linked together via a web interface to allow the end-user to jump to different positions in the space.

3D tours are the next evolution in virtual walkthroughs, allowing the end-user to smoothly navigate through a fully 3D environment, resulting in a more natural and realistic experience.

3D virtual tours are fast becoming a mainstream solution in an array of industries including residential property, commercial property, education, retail, food/drink industry, construction, hospitality, automotive, asset management, entertainment venues, function spaces, health/fitness, education, travel & tourism and many more.

Ultimately, they provide potential clients and customers with the ability to explore your space as if they were right there walking through it.

Immersive 3D environments allow people to tour your property from anywhere in the world, at any time, on any device.

Not only are they highly engaging, but thanks to huge leaps in technological innovation they can be surprisingly affordable! Most businesses see a positive ROI within a matter of just a few days or weeks.

By allowing your website visitors to explore your space in 3D, you can drastically reduce your bounce rate, which is a major factor in search engine optimisation (SEO). This also allows you to reduce the amount of time wasted in giving personalised on-site tours to unqualified leads who could have discovered much sooner that it wasn’t right for them.

Additionally, a good quality virtual tour can help you to stand out from the competition by staying ahead of the curve. The ability to instantly and conveniently explore a space in immersive 3D could be the difference between a qualified lead or a website bounce.

There are 3 main steps to getting your own virtual tour. First, we scan and photograph your space. Second, we process the captures and produce the virtual tour. Lastly, you embed the tour to your website or mobile app ready for use. You can also link people directly to the virtual tour (say, from social media).

Unlike traditional 3D virtual tours, our camera equipment doesn’t just take pictures. In addition to high-resolution 4k images, our Matterport Pro2 cameras use sensors to scan and produce a 3D “mesh” of the surrounding environment than can even be exported as .xyz or .obj for further editing.

These images and mesh are then cleverly combined and stitched together using Matterport’s proprietary AI and machine learning platform to form a fully immersive and interactive 3D environment.

3D virtual tours are created by cleverly combining a 3D “mesh” with 360° photographic imagery. Unfortunately, direct sunlight can interfere with the sensors used to generate the 3D mesh. While we do not officially support outdoor 3D tours and results cannot be guaranteed we have had great success in scanning gardens, courtyards and patios just after sunrise and early evening. Our cameras can, however, capture any outdoor environment in full 360° 4K high-resolution. The images produced are spherical “panorama-style” images that allow viewers to see in all directions. While the absence of 3D mesh means that users cannot “walk around”, capturing a series of external 360° images means that viewers don’t necessarily miss out on experiencing the outdoors.

360° photos are created by stitching together a number of still 2D images to form an uninterrupted panoramic “loop”, giving the impression of standing within a room and viewing a 3D environment. While viewing a 360° photo, you cannot “walk around” the environment. Traditional 360° virtual tours are typically created by manually capturing, editing and stitching together hundreds of 2D images; commonly taken with a DSLR camera mounted on a rotor or high-end 360 camera. The visual quality of each 360° photo can be very high and each one can undergo post-production to increase the visual appeal. However, these tours usually have very limited navigation capabilities for the end-user and provide a rather awkward or clunky user experience. Also, the manual nature of these tours requires almost all elements to be processed and linked together by a skilled person, rather than a computer, meaning that it can be extremely slow and expensive to produce. They generally work best for those who consider extreme high-definition visuals and post-production to be more important than the quality of the end-user experience and the time/cost involved. 3D tours, however, not only allow you to “walk around” and explore from different angles in the room but the visual representation is truly 3D, providing a much more realistic experience. They are the next evolution from pure 360° virtual tours. Matterport is the industry leader for 3D virtual tours. With a number of proprietary innovations such as the “dolls house” view, they provide arguably the best end-user experience available on the market today. Their cutting-edge camera technology allows for almost effortless high-quality 3D scanning and 4k visual capture. Additionally, their powerful AI and machine learning capabilities reduce the need for human input; speeding up the overall turnaround time to as little as a few hours, rather than days or weeks for a traditional 360° tour. They generally work best for those that want to provide viewers with: (a) an industry-leading user experience that is realistic, smooth and intuitive or (b) a faster turnaround time or more affordable package. Perhaps best of all, Matterport 3D virtual tours can be created at a fraction of the cost of traditional manually generated 360° tours, and with a better user experience to boot.

Every 3D Virtual Tour provider prices their services differently but there can be large variations depending on the type of 3D tour you require.

 

Traditional 360 Tour

As you would expect, pricing can vary but you can typically expect to pay between £100 to £150 + VAT for each 360° photo; meaning a 4 bedroom house (approx 15x 360° locations) could cost in the region of £1500 to £2000 +VAT.

You will also need to pay a developer to install it to your server and may also incur costs due to the additional bandwidth and resources required to run the tour.

 

Matterport 3D Tour

Our pricing also varies depending on the space and size. You can typically expect to pay just £199 for a 1-2 bedroom property, £249 for a 3-4 bedroom property or £299 for a 5-8 bedroom property.

We typically charge between £299 to £499 for retail spaces below 2,500 square feet.

A larger space such as a car showroom, music venue or gym/leisure centre could cost between £499 to £799

For large chain hotels we charge £950 for a standard package including public spaces and a selection of available bedroom types, conference areas and other facilities.

Hosting is charged per property/venue at £5 per month or £50 paid annually. Hosting fees only apply for active tours (ie live and visible to the public).

Please note, these prices serve only as an indication. For a quote, please get in touch.

3D virtual tours are a perfect fit for many industries.

Business

• Wedding Venues
• Hotels & Resorts
• Gyms & Leisure Centres
• Retail & Shopping Centres
• Pubs & Restaurants
• Entertainment Venues
• Salons & Beauty
• Car Showrooms
• Staff Onboarding/Training

Property

• Serviced Offices
• Serviced Accommodation
• Commercial Property
• HMO Operators
• Estate Agents
• Property Developers
• Letting Agents
• Asset Management

Other Useful Applications

• Construction
• Schools, Colleges & Universities
• Architecture
• Museums & Libraries
• Engineering
• Tourism & Public Spaces
• Computer Gaming