HELP DOCUMENT
EASILY CREATE A VIRTUAL TOUR USING STILL PHOTOS AND PANORAMIC PICTURES
PRINT THIS DOCUMENT BEFORE CREATING A TOURSTEP 1. Taking the pictures
We highly recommend investing in a tripod. These can normally be purchased for between $25 and $35 at various department stores. This ensures the best result for creating a panoramic image.
STILL SHOTS We have found that the most attractive virtual tour combines both still shots and panoramic shots. We recommend that you always begin your tour with one or two still shots (allowing time for the panoramas to begin loading). So take a couple of pictures of the exterior to begin. Take still pictures of bathrooms, cabinet detail, smaller rooms.
PANORAMAS Angle of Panoramas. Although you can create 360 panoramas, we have found that these may give a distorted view of the room if the room is too small. Only the very large homes or outside views can utilize 360 degree photography without significant distortion. Also, as 360 panoramas are very large, they will take longer to upload (both when you are creating the tour and when a customer is trying to view the virtual tour). We therefore recommend shooting no more than 3-4 overlapping photos to create a 180 degree panorama. You can always shoot two different 180 panoramas in a room from different corners.
It is important to always shoot clockwise. Set up your tripod and camera in the corner of the room you are going to shoot. Make sure all lights are on. Check to see if you will need flash photography. Take your first picture, memorizing an object on the right of the viewfinder. Then rotate the camera on the tripod so that the object you saw in the right of your viewfinder on the first shot is now in the left of your new photo. Take the new picture, repeating the process for 3-4 pictures. Do not shoot more than roughly 180 degrees (roughly what you can see through your own eyes). Do not turn your camera and shoot the picture vertically - the resulting panorama or still will be distorted if you do.
STEP 2. Creating the Tour
Once you get back to your office, the first thing you will do is download your digital pictures from your camera onto your computer hard drive. Create a new folder and save all your jpg pictures into that file. Make sure this folder is within your "My Pictures" folder if you are going to be using Windows Live Photo Gallery.
HOW TO USE WINDOWS LIVE PHOTO GALLERY TO CREATE A PANORAMA
Highlight the 4-5 pictures that you want to stitch together. Click on 'MAKE' - choose 'Create Panoramic Photo'. The program will stitch together your pictures.
The resulting photo may be a little jagged around the edges.
Go to 'FIX'. Choose the "crop" feature. Stretch crop marks out as far as you can to get a good photo. Apply. Close this window.
Next you need to reduce the size so that it will be small enough to upload.
Go to 'OPEN'. Make sure that your cropped panoramic is still highlighted. Choose a program to reduce the size of the picture. Most people will have "paint".
Go to 'IMAGE' - 'STRETCH/SKEW' - and enter a percentage for Horizontal and Vertical (must be the same percentage). Depending on how high a resolution the photograph is will depend on what percentage. You want to get the photo appearing to be about 4" high on your computer. Save.
Check the size on PHOTO GALLERY by clicking 'INFO'. Your picture should be less than 200 Kb.
REPEAT FOR EACH PANORAMA YOU WANT TO CREATE.
After you have created all the panoramas, close PhotoVista and log onto RE Pages Online. Log onto your account and begin the tour creation.
Here is the completed panoramic demo for the photos above.
PLEASE NOTE - WHEN YOU ARE UPLOADING PICTURES FOR DIFFERENT ROOMS YOU MUST USE THE CORRECT UPLOAD OPTION. PANORAMAS MUST BE UPLOADED THROUGH THE PANORAMIC PHOTO UPLOAD.
