What matters in practice
“Virtual tour” describes three very different things whose cost, effort and usefulness have about as much in common as a floor plan and a photograph. If a brief does not separate them, the quotations that come back cannot sensibly be compared.
- Linked 360-degree panoramas. You stand at fixed points and click onward. Complete, comparatively inexpensive, limited in how it can be shaped. Good for documenting existing stock, for letting and for handovers.
- A filmed walkthrough. One continuous camera move through the real rooms. It demands resolution and lighting, but it tells an order of things and it feels like a film.
- A rendered animation. Shows what is not built yet. The only option for competition entries and pre-construction sales. And by far the most involved.
What regularly surprises people about 360-degree tours
You can see everything, so nothing can be hidden. There is no lighting rig out of frame, no cordon, no crew behind the camera. The room has to be as it should look: tidy, free of building debris, free of people who have not consented. And under the tripod there is always a patch that gets retouched. It shows anyway if the floor has a pattern.
Then there is daylight. Since the sun is in shot through every window, the time of day decides the result, and an overcast day is usually the better one. A tour cannot be squeezed into an hour in the afternoon.
The point that gets forgotten
A tour ages with the building. After the first refurbishment it is wrong, and nobody feels responsible for it. So settle two things at the outset: where it is hosted and who updates it. A tour showing a state of affairs that no longer exists is worse than none.