Here is an example scan. On mobile or tablet, double tap the screen and swipe to look around. On desktop, you can use the arrow keys and mouse to explore.

Preparing for your scan

Your virtual tour will allow website visitors to explore your space ‘virtually’ through a website. When people ask how they should prepare for the scan I normally advise that it should be presented as they would for for an in-person visit.

My advice is that workshops and factories are places where where work is done, so that is what people are expecting to see – don’t worry too much about make the space ‘perfect’.

Is there anything we need to pay particular attention to?

The camera captures 360 degree images in high resolution. The main things to look out for are:

• Commercially sensitive work – you may want to consider hiding, moving or disguising anything that you don’t want people outside of your business to see
• Customer details or invoices, etc. The camera captures images in high resolution so viewers may be able to see names, address, etc.
• Notice boards with information or pictures on – you may want to cover these up
• The camera works very well indoors, but is not really well designed for capturing outdoors areas.

What happens during the scan?

The camera is mounted on a tripod and the virtual tour is created by taking a series of images which are around 2 metres apart. Each image needs to follow on from the last as the software creates a virtual 3D model as the images are captured.

I control the camera remotely so will make sure I’m out of site for the 30-ish seconds it takes to capture each image. I’ll then move the camera a couple of metres and capture the next image

Ideally your factory or workshop will be empty, however, it’s quite common to have people working within the space during the scan. Quite often, workers will simply go for a coffee break when I need to capture the area they’re working in.

Full virtual tour capture usually take up to 2 hours to complete and the full scan is normally made of between 40 and 80 scans

After the scan

Once the virtual tour has been captured, the data will be uploaded to the cloud for processing. It’s normally between 1 and 2 days until it’s ready to view

Common mistakes

Many businesses will tidy by just moving everything unwanted into a corner, however, the camera may still be able to see this. If you need to do this, please make sure you won’t be able to see it from the areas we’re capturing

Editing options

• Setting the start point. This is the minimum editing required for each virtual tour
• Adding information hot-spots. Some business require information hotspots to be included within the tour. These can contain text, links, images (JPG or PNG) or films (YouTube or Vimeo)
• Blurring. If there is anything that was missed in the preparation of the space, or something that was not able to be moved or hidden, there is the option to ‘blur’ areas within the images during editing with a paint-brush type tool. This doesn’t look great and is a last-resort option

FAQs

• Should we include offices in the tour? My opinion is that you should focus on the really interesting things such as machinery and capacity. Offices tend to look like offices are not generally particularly interesting meaning they may take attention away from the areas you’d like visitors to see
• Do we need to capture all areas within our workshop? No, we can capture an area of your workshop. However, please remember the camera images are 360-degree so you may still be able to see the areas we haven’t specifically captured
• We have two workshops in different buildings, or our workshops are at opposite ends of the building. Will this work? Each scan has to follow on from a previous scan, or in other words, a new scan can’t be more than about 2 or 3 metres further away from a previous scan. It’s therefore not possible to capture two separate areas within one scan, unless they can be joined using, for example, a corridor.
• Is the virtual tour like a film? Can I upload the tour to YouTube? The virtual tour is made of static images, but gives the illusion of movement. It is designed to be interactive, as opposed to a film which is designed to be viewed passively.
• Can people be on the virtual tour? Yes, it still works. But for best results, the workshop would be empty or close to empty

• Can you also produce normal images? If you would like normal images producing along with your virtual tour, please let me know in advance