WHY CHOOSE A BESPOKE TOUR

There are other types of virtual tours, but not all virtual tours are the same. There are three main types of tours; Google Street View, Matterport, Bespoke.

We don’t use the Matterport system for a number of reasons, but the main ones are that the quality is not high enough compared to our DSLR produced tours, and they cannot be edited or retouched once the images have been captured, so shadows of tripods etc will be visible. Matterport also cannot produce full 360° viewable tours as it cannot capture the zenith (top) or nadir (bottom), so these will always be blurred out. Finally, the client is tied in to a monthly payment to access the tours, so even though you have paid for the tour to be produced, there are additional ongoing costs.

Google Street View tours can be produced from DSLR captured images, but they are compressed when uploaded and can’t be made as immersive as bespoke tours, and all have a similar look and feel. They are stored on Google’s servers, so taking them offline or changing them can be a major exercise. As Google are constantly changing their systems we find it hard to recommend this option.

Our bespoke tours are high quality, checked for correct exposure, shadows/highlights, white balance, etc. We then colour grade, retouch, and check each image, and recheck at each stage of the process, by hand, to ensure consistent quality. These tours are custom made for you, based on what you want. You can include whichever areas of your business that you wish, and really tailor the tour to be an experience. Our 360° virtual tours are yours to use forever, hosted wherever you wish. Because they are bespoke, they can be easily updated, even if it’s just swapping a single room because of a change of decor.

Below is a comparison comparing some of the main differences between a bespoke virtual tour and Matterport.

    
    BESPOKE TOUR
    MATTERPORT
  
    Full Spherical 360° view (360x180) - This includes both zenith (top) and nadir (bottom)
    YES
    NO
  
    RAW image processing - Includes adjustments to white balance, exposure, highlights, shadows, midtones, colour correction
    YES
    NO
  
    Retouching - eg removing unwanted objects (such as tripod shadows, reflections, etc), fine tuning image quality
    YES
    NO
  
    Removal of moving people / objects
    YES
    NO
  
    Indoor and outdoor panoramas
    YES
    Matterport has limitations with bright light and reflections, making outdoor panoramas problematic.
  
    High resolution panoramas
    YES
    YES - Matterport resolution is not as high as a DSLR produced virtual tour
  
    Tour skins (overlays) and immersive additions such as hotspots, video, audio, embedded links
    YES
    Limited options available
  
    Ability to update tour in future
    YES
    NO - The entire tour would need to be captured again in its entirety.
  
    Multi-resolution for high quality fast loading
    YES - our bespoke tours adapt the resolution based on the end user’s device, screen resolution, and internet speed; this ensures the best quality coupled with the best performance.
    NO - Only a single resolution is provided.
  
    Incorporate your own branding
    YES
    NO
  
    User experience
    Fully customisable and links take you directly between rooms, rather than requiring multiple clicks.
    The entire property needs to be captured, so moving between rooms takes multiple clicks, which could easily disengage the user as it becomes too time consuming to navigate.
  
    Available offline for computer / kiosk viewing
    YES
    NO
  
    Ability to include on social media versions for Facebook
    YES
    Matterport only allow a low resolution export, and they charge extra for this.
  
    VR ready for use with headsets
    YES
    YES
  
    Embeddable via an iframe
    YES
    YES
  
    White labelled (no branding on your tour)
    YES
    NO - The Matterport logo is included throughout your virtual tour.
  
    Hosting on any server
    YES
    NO - Matterport tours are hosted on their own servers, so you have no control.
  
    Ongoing monthly costs
    NO
    YES - Matterport have ongoing monthly hosting charges in order to keep your tour viewable. Once you stop paying, your tour is no longer available.
  
    Dollshouse Effect
    NO - The dollshouse effect is proprietary to Matterport.
    YES