Best Virtual Tours Inside and Outside

The best way to get top quality 3D like virtual tours is with a manual camera system – there is no other way around it. The human eye has yet to be replicated.

Sun, or overcast lighting poses the biggest challenge, inside and out. This requires a skilled, knowledgable photographer using light meters, multiple exposure settings and post-production software, but to name a few.

If you have a virtual tour that is limited to indoor imagery, there are probably at least 4 reasons to consider an independent phortography service like mine:

1. Window shots will look better
2. Outside shots will be available (critical to pool, patio, rooftop area’s etc.)
3. They can be added to Google Maps
4. You can embed the tour on your website!

Manual 360º Photography by Bob Henderson

Website Version

Google Maps Version

Best Practices Manual Camera Settings for each shot per tour point:

1. Manual Focus
2. Manual Shutter Speed
3. Manual ISO (100 for most shoots)
4. Consistent f-stop per tour point
5. Manual Color Balance
6. Balanced tripod
7. Balanced lens
8. No flash

#virtualtours #createtn

Nashville Belle Meade Home for Sale

403 Sunnyside Drive, Nashville, TN 37205  home for sale by Chris Lambos with The Realty Association. Tour this classic 1966 stunning Warterfield & Bass-designed Mid-Century Modern-Light-filled home in a 3D like virtual 360º tour.

#realty #virtualtour

Virtual Tour Hosting on roundme.com

Some virtual tours look better on a dedicated server. When more than 3 or 4 tour points are linked together, some hosting services suffer from performance issues. Here is a large 18 point apartment tour hosted on roundme.com. Each image is 10k pixels wide, and the entire package is 291MB large. Note the rapid load time and clarity of the photo spheres. All it requires is a line of iframe code on a web page or post, similar to Google Maps.

Elliston 23 is an upscale urban apartment complex in Mid-Town Nashville, Tennessee.

#createtn #virtualtour #nashville

© Bob Henderson

VR for Historic Preservation

• Update 17 MAY 2017: Virtual tour test shoot panorama’s
• Update 11 APRIL 2017: MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment will be joining this project, set to film sometime this summer. In addition to 360º tour points, it will include cutting edge 360º video.

Located in Pulaski, Tennessee, Antoinette Hall is one of the Oldest standing Opera Houses in the eastern United States. But the 1868 structure needs a massive renovation.  I am shooting a Virtual Reality Panorama of this magnificent facility; before and after the renovation.  The before’s intent is to promote the restoration fundraising, by capturing a realistic rendering in Virtual Realty (VR).

I can’t think of a better example of how useful a 360º VR could be. This old vaudeville venue theater takes your breath away when you walk through the door. It has a u-shaped upper balcony and a massive domed ceiling. It feels like a movie set in the 19th century. Short of being there, nothing other than an immersive 360º panoramic photo sphere can capture this ambience. A $15 Google Cardboard viewer could be a good fundraising tool. Augmented Virtual Reality can be employed to describe features of the interior, or even visualize the completed design.

One of the challenges, is that the opera theater currently has no functional lighting. Our plan is to strategically place vertical LED light boxes  in the balcony and shoot from the floor with long shutter speeds.

Located on the Pulaski town square, this historical landmark is an hour and a half drive south of Nashville. The old opera hall is on the second floor of the Staar Theater. This performing arts center venue is in operation, but the second floor hall is closed to the public for now.

A test shoot interactive virtual tour of the 1868 opera house:

For more information on the project, or to make a donation: Antoinette Hall

105 North First Street, Pulaski, TN 38478
Phone:931-363-7222

This Eric Paslay music video was shot in Antoinette Hall

#createtn #antoinettehall #vr #historic

Pano2VR WordPress Output

Pano2VR and Object2VR outputs can be easily integrated into WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal using plugins/extensions and the Garden Gnome Package (GGPKG), to drag and drop to the WordPress media file. The Garden Gnome Package is a package format that holds all the necessary information to embed your project into your or your client’s CMS site.

Tours larger than 4 tour points require an FTP process. Modifying the PHP code to increase the upload file size, does not work with this imagery.

Augmented Reality options with Pano2VR:

• pop-up videos or hot-spot* videos
• pop-up photos or hot-spot photos
• auto-play audio or hot-spot audio
• embedded URL Links
• embedded info pop-ups
• custom tour node icons
• aerial map view with a rotating radar effect

*hot-spots can be a visual features in the imagery, or a floating SVG icon.

An alternate display format is Roundme.com. It has a variety of custom options and is uploaded to their server with an iframe link.

Google Maps can also be used as well, but has no customization features:

Nashville FAA Part 107 SUAS Drone Operator

I am now licensed by the Federal Aviation Department to operate Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Suas). I am also a FAA certified Private Pilot with over 2000 hours of flight time in a variety of military and civilian aircraft. I fly the DJI Mavic Pro 4k 12 megapixel Unmanned Aircraft System.

Course Number ALC-451
Presented by Online Courses April 12, 2017

#drone #certified #nashville

Pivotal Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee:

“Tennessee played a pivotal role in the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in 1920. By that summer, 35 of the 36 states necessary had ratified the amendment. Eight states had rejected the amendment, and five had not voted. Suffragists saw Tennessee as their last, best hope for ratification before the 1920 presidential election. Governor Albert H. Roberts called a special session of the General Assembly on August 9 to consider the issue. Pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage activists from around the state and the country descended on Nashville, intent on influencing the legislature.” …read more

Virtual Tour of Alan LeQuire’s Woman Suffrage Sculpture in Nashville’s Centennial Park

Tennessean Article

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex”– Nineteenth Amendment, U.S. Constitution”… read more

#createtn

Theta One Shot Imagery vs Manual 360º Photography

I was worried that the one-shot Theta camera would make my work obsolete. Then I compared the two images on Google Maps here. Manual 360º photography still offers the best imagery.

This is the courtyard of the World War I Memorial building in Nashville, Tennessee.

301 6th Ave N, Nashville, TN 37243

“A statue of a classical warrior, nude except for sandals, a helmet, and a cloth which drapes around his proper left hip and loins. He holds a sword and wreath in his proper right hand. His proper right arm is draped with cloth. He holds a small female figure of Nike in the palm of his proper left hand, which is outstretched. His proper left leg is bent and rests on a part of a ship’s hull. The sculpture rests on a simple rectangular granite base with a stepped bottom.” – Smithsonian Art Inventory