Virtual tours of the space

Hi everyone!

I'm looking to try my hand at creating some virtual tours of spaces on my own, so I was hoping you all could walk me through exactly what I'll need to get started. Just a quick breakdown of the essentials.
Thanks in advance! 🙂

Here is an example for reference:
https://goo.gl/maps/64DEn7ghbew

You’re gonna need a VR camera... and the software probably comes bundled with it anyway...

placidbear11 said:Hey everyone!

I want to try making my own virtual tours of different spaces, so can someone please tell me what I actually need to get started? Basically, looking for a breakdown.
Thanks in advance! 🙂

Here's an example 👋
https://goo.gl/maps/64DEn7ghbew

What you're talking about are basically 360° panoramic photos or videos.
Example: https://theta360.com/spheres/samples...064087ff3472-1
nimbleskipper5 was probably thinking of this when he mentioned needing a "VR camera," but that's not really the right way to say it. People usually use "VR" when they're talking about actual Virtual Reality—stuff you view through 3D goggles (like this: ). Just wanted to clarify so you don't go down the wrong rabbit hole.

So, yeah, these are 360° shots you can look around in if you upload them to a 360° panorama service or use a custom app. You could technically take them with any camera, but you'd need a specific shooting technique and then have to spend time stitching everything together in some specialized software.
Or, you could just buy a dedicated camera made specifically for this stuff. Those cameras handle both 360° stills and video, and honestly, if you want video, those specialized units are pretty much the only way to go.
If you want a solid recommendation for something decent and affordable, check out the GoPro Max: https://theta360.com/en/about/theta/s.html
It goes for around $350 and takes great 360° stills and pretty decent video. The best thing about these types of cameras is that you just snap one shot and you're done—no massive editing headache later because the camera automatically creates a finished 360° image ready to use. If you're chasing high-end video quality, though, be prepared to drop a lot more cash.
Here's a review of it:

You can also view these 360° images using VR goggles, but you won't get that sense of depth or physical space you'd find in fully realized 3D interactive apps built from scratch in a 3D environment. Watching 360° panoramas in VR feels more like looking at a giant photo wrapped around your head rather than actually being inside the room.

Hey neonharbor10, nah, I wasn't talking about a standard 360 camera. Usually, when people say that, they mean a camera with a horizontal panorama that doesn't tilt up or down. VR is different—it captures the whole damn environment, basically a full spherical panorama in every single direction.

The ultimate goal for VR headsets in the near future—if we haven't already hit that mark—is virtual teleportation. However, the hardware needs to shrink down until it's roughly the size of standard eyeglasses.

Lawrence Kim said:the whole point of VR headsets in the near future—if it hasn't already happened—is basically virtual teleportation, but we gotta shrink the tech down until it's about the size of regular glasses

Can you explain that concept a bit more?

neonharbor10 said:Can you explain that concept a bit more?

I think they just swapped VR for holography...

neonharbor10 said:Can you explain that concept a bit more?

Say you're on a Skype call and the other person uses a 360-degree camera that streams directly to your smart glasses. It gives you the sensation of being physically present in their room.

Lawrence Kim said:like, imagine you're on a Skype call and the other person has a 360 camera sending the feed straight to your glasses, making you feel like you've been teleported right into their room.

Yeah, I mean, in theory? Sure, it works. But here’s the thing: data transfer and actual quality are going to be huge issues. Even if you're shooting 4K 360 video, once you put those glasses on, the resolution feels trash because you're really only looking at a tiny fraction of that 4K frame.
Then there's the whole stereo 360 issue. Unless you have two cameras mounted on some crazy rig that tracks your head movement perfectly—which basically defeats the purpose of a panorama anyway—you aren't getting true depth. And if you do try that, you run straight into latency. If there's even a slight delay between moving your head and the view catching up, you're gonna feel nauseous and dizzy instantly.
So, honestly, what's the point? With all those massive headaches, I don't see how this offers much more than just a standard video chat.

neonharbor10 said:Sure; in theory, it works. The issues are data transfer and quality. Even with 4K 360 video, the resolution looks terrible through goggles because you're only seeing a tiny fraction of those pixels.
Another issue is the lack of stereo 360 capability. Unless you have cameras on a complex rig that tracks head movement, you don't even need a panorama. But then you hit latency. Any delay between moving your head and the view updating causes instant nausea.
So, one has to wonder if there's any actual benefit here over a standard video call, given all these flaws.

As you noted, it works in theory. Those technical hurdles will likely be cleared in a few years.

Lawrence Kim said:Like you said, it could work in theory, they just gotta fix those issues you mentioned. I bet they'll figure it out eventually, maybe in a few years or so.

Look, since data transfer and signal lag are the biggest hurdles, I seriously doubt they're gonna invent some magic fix; unless they find a way to send data faster than light, which—let's be real—isn't happening. Even if they nail the stereoscopic view and the resolution issues despite the latency, the whole thing would only be halfway decent over short distances... Like, distances where you could just hop in your car and drive there for a fraction of what the VR gear costs. And where would this actually make sense? Somewhere on the other side of the world? That brings us right back to the latency problem.
For example, 20 milliseconds is the absolute limit for VR; once you hit 50ms, the lag becomes super obvious. Personally, I’ve got fiber optic with 100 Mbps up/down, but my ping to Washington, D.C. is already 50 ms. If we're talking international, it jumps straight to 200 ms.

That "VR teleportation" stuff might work as a kind of virtual tourism, but not in real-time. You'd be downloading recorded locations, so latency wouldn't even matter then.
But real-time? Yeah, good luck with that.

I don't claim to be an expert on telecommunications or all this hardware, so I won't pretend to dive into the technical weeds, but I do have a specific vision for where technology is headed

For instance, I believe television will eventually adopt this tech; everything will be captured via 360-degree cameras and experienced through virtual reality

Lawrence Kim said:Look, I’m no tech expert when it comes to telecommunications or all that gear, so I'm not gonna dive into some deep-dive debate about the technicalities. I just have a vision of where this technology actually needs to go.

Look, the visions are fine and all, but they actually need to line up with what’s technically possible and doable. At the end of the day, you gotta stay grounded in what's actually practical.

Lawrence Kim said:I mean, honestly? I bet TV is gonna go that way too. Everything’s eventually gonna be shot with a GoPro Max, and we'll all just be sitting there watching it like it's straight-up VR.

Honestly, I think 360 video is pretty much useless most of the time. If you aren't staring exactly where the "action" is happening, you miss everything important. Like, I was watching this 360 clip of a NASCAR race where there was a massive wreck, and it was such a pain. I had to rewind and scrub through the footage three different times just to make sure I was actually looking in the right direction at the exact moment the crash happened. If it had just been a regular video, I could've seen the whole thing in one go. Instead, I wasted way more time than I should have without even getting anything worthwhile out of it. Sure, spinning your head around is a fun gimmick for about five seconds, but man, it gets exhausting fast.

So, say you’ve got this 360 video of a football game, right? But then the exact second someone scores, you happen to be looking the wrong way and totally miss the goal. If you actually want to watch the game—instead of just spinning around the stadium looking at random people in the stands—you have to stare intently in one direction the whole time. And if you do that, what's the point? You're basically back to watching a regular TV broadcast. Except, it sucks more. The video quality is trash, you need specialized gear, a specific playback device, crazy fast internet... and most importantly, you lose the whole social vibe of watching sports or movies. Once you strap those goggles on, you're "locked" into your own little VR bubble and completely cut off from the real world. Like, being able to watch the game with your buddies while grabbing a few beers? Yeah, that's totally out the window.

Look, if you ask me, 360 photography actually makes sense and is super useful. We're talking about static shots here; with the cameras you can grab right now, you can just snap a photo that captures everything happening around you at that exact moment. Then later, you can sit back and study every single detail of the shot without worrying you missed something like you would with a video. Plus, the image quality is way better, and the files are much smaller and easier to share online.

So, I did this quick little presentation and demo at a Devz meetup over in Savannah recently. I was talking about where VR is actually headed, and honestly? It’s all about mobile. Whether we're talking 360 video, still shots, or even full-blown VR apps—mobile is the move. The logic is simple: smartphones are already beefy enough to handle the basics of VR. Plus, you can grab a decent set of mobile VR goggles for like fifteen bucks, which makes the whole thing super accessible to everyone. Compare that to high-end PC VR... man, what a joke. Sure, PC VR looks wayyy better, but the entry cost is insane. You're looking at $400 just for the headset, and don't even get me started on the rig—you'll need a PC that costs at least another grand just to run it smoothly. Not exactly "for the masses," right?

Look, VR definitely has a future and its own niche, but it’s not a magic fix for everything. Some stuff is just better handled when you actually focus on the task at hand with a more compact setup.

What’s technically impossible today will be standard tomorrow. It always has been, and it always will be. We haven't even scratched the surface of what technology can do; there is plenty of room left to grow.

I disagree with the idea that 360 video is useless. First off, we live in a 360-degree world, and experiencing life that way is far more interesting than staring in a single direction. If you happen to look the wrong way and miss something important, that isn't a flaw in the tech—it's just a more realistic representation of life. In reality, we spend half our time looking at the wrong things and missing details anyway.

This kind of tech is going to completely overhaul the outdated concept of video presentation as we know it.

Lawrence Kim said:what isn't technically possible today will be tomorrow—that’s just how it goes. we haven't even scratched the surface of what tech can do yet; there's still massive potential out there

I don't buy this idea that 360 video is useless. First off, we live in a 360-degree world. Life is way more interesting when you aren't stuck staring in one single direction all the time. And sure, maybe you'll glance the wrong way and miss something important, but that's not a bug, it's a feature. That's just reality. In real life, we look the wrong way and miss stuff all the time anyway

this kind of tech is going to completely flip the script on how we think about video presentations, which are already becoming obsolete

Well, the day we actually figure out how to break the speed of light, we won't even need 360 video anymore.
And that whole "looking the wrong way in reality" thing? That's a flaw in reality. Technology is supposed to go beyond and fix those flaws to make things actually useful and better than real life. You wouldn't argue that online shopping should force you to stand in a virtual line just because that's how physical stores work.

neonharbor10 said:The day we actually crack faster-than-light travel, 360-degree video will be obsolete anyway.
Claiming that you're occasionally looking at things from a skewed perspective is just a flaw in reality. Technology should fix those flaws, not mimic them, if it wants to be worth anything more than the real world. It’s like arguing that online shopping should include a virtual waiting line just because physical stores have them.

Look, there’s no point in debating who’s right here. Maybe it's you, maybe it's me. Doesn't matter. What I'm saying is inevitable: people will eventually want to feel like they're halfway across the country without ever leaving their living rooms.