Building a Panoramic Tour

Learn the basic workflow for building a VR tour in Pano2VR.

Tour Building begins in the Tour Browser. It is open by default when you first
start Pano2VR. However, if you need to open it, you can do any of the following:

• Click the Tour Browser button in the
  toolbar.

• In the Menu Bar, go to Window and
  choose Tour Browser.

• Use the keyboard shortcut, Alt or Option-Shift-T.

tour_build_project.zip

Import the Images

First, import all tour images by doing any of the following:

• Select all images or a folder in Explorer or Finder and drag them into the
  Tour Browser or
  Viewer.

• Click the Input button and then
  select all the tour images. Click, Open.

Set up the Images

Once the images are added to the Tour Browser, you can
then modify the image order (click and drag), change the
default views and
add geolocation data.

Set the starting panorama

The first image that is imported into the project will be automatically assigned
as the starting panorama. You can change this order by rearranging the images or
by right-clicking on a thumbnail and choose, Set as Start Panorama. The
starting panorama is indicated by the number 1 in the upper left corner.

Set the default view

The
default view
is the initial view of a panorama on open and is different from Target
View which is set when linking nodes with hotspots. The default view is used
when opening the panorama from a menu or entering the panorama from an element
other than a node hotspot.

Set North

If you know where North is, hold down N. A compass will appear in the Viewer.
Spin the panorama to match North with the North indicator. You can turn on the
Center Marker in the
Viewer Settings to help line it
up. If you do not know where North is, you can use the Pick Landmark feature
in the
Tour Map.
North can then be copied to all nodes.

Add information

Add information about the project in
Project User Data.

And add general information (metadata) about each node in
User Data (if not already
added from Exif data). If the User Data is the same for all images, you can copy
to all nodes.

Add location information

If your panoramas already have GPS information, you can skip this part. But if
GPS was not captured, you can use the Tour Map to assign a location to the
images.

1. Open the Tour Map.

2. Enter the image’s location or address in the Address search field and click
   the magnifying glass (Or Enter). A green flag will be dropped.

3. Confirm the location by clicking the flag. A red pin with a radar beam will
   be dropped.

   

   

Return to the User Data panel and the Latitude and Longitude fields will have
been updated.

Add tags

In User Data, add
Tags to the image by typing in the field
and then hit spacebar, comma, tab, or enter to add the tag. This is an optional
step that is useful for organization as well as building menus.

Link the Images

After setting up the images, you can start linking (or
pointing) the
nodes.

The nodes are linked together with
Point Hotspots in this tutorial. (The
other way to move through a tour is through a menu.)

All linking options except the manual linking options require
location data. To find if your images have location data, go User Data and check
the Latitude and Longitude fields in the Capture pane. If they’re empty,
you have no location data.

Ghost Hotspots

When the images have location data, you will see
ghost hotspots in the Viewer.
Double-click these gray hotspots to activate them and the images will be linked.
Ghost hotspots can be shown or hidden from the viewer in the
Viewer Settings.

Auto Place

Drag images from the Tour Browser to the Viewer to take advantage of Auto
Place.

Location data must be added to the images.

1. Drag a node to the Viewer. The node you are dragging will be placed or linked
   to the node in the Viewer (active node). In the upper right corner, there
   will be two drop zones where you can drop the node.

   

2. Drop to one of the following drop zones:

   Auto Place – This will link the current/active node to the placed node.

   Auto Place Both Ways – This will link the current/active node to the
   placed node and the placed node will link back to the current node.

You can also drag a selection of nodes. Select the nodes by either dragging the
mouse over the selection or by holding down Control (win) or Command (macOS) and
selecting the nodes. The active node (indicated by a lighter shade of grey) is
what the other nodes will link to.

In the Tour Map below, Node B was the active node (selected first). Nodes A and
C were also selected and were linked to node B.

Automatic Linking

This method of creating a tour is the fastest way to link the panoramas. There
are two automatic linking options and both require the images to have location
data and North to be set. See Setting up the Images.

Sequential Linking

This links the images based on their order in the Tour Browser. The target views
of the point hotspots are set to point in the direction of the next hotspot,
allowing the user to quickly click through the tour.

Choose Sequential from the Tour menu in the
Menu Bar.

Closest Node

Closest Node links the images according to their location data.

Manual Linking

The manual linking method is recommended especially when the images are not
geolocated or the precise location is not known.

1. Change the Viewer Mode to Point Hotspots.

2. Drag the panorama that should be linked to the start panorama from the Tour
   Browser to the Viewer. This will automatically add the point hotspot and
   create the link.

3. Drag in the next panorama that should be linked to the start panorama.

4. Continue for the rest of the nodes in the project.

5. Save the project.

Output the Project

When you’re ready to to see the project, output the project for the web.

1. Open the Output Panel.

2. Click on the green plus and choose Web.

3. Add a skin. Choose from the number of built-in Skins. These skins have menus,
   point hotspot icons, and more. If you do not add a skin, the node hotspots
   will be displayed as red dots.

4. Click the Generate Output button. The project will open in your default
   browser.

   It is not on the internet! Pano2VR has an
   Integrated Web Server which allows us to
   view the tour immediately in the browser without uploading it to the
   internet. The URL in the browser cannot be shared with anyone because the
   project is only available on your computer. The output folder and all its
   contents must be uploaded to web server, or exported as a package file for
   use in a CMS site like WordPress, or uploaded to Gnome Cloud.

To learn about all the export options check out these
articles.

If you want to view the tour in immersive view in a VR headset, follow
this tutorial.

Updating a Published Tour

On output, Pano2VR will only regenerate files that have been changed. If you
need to update the entire content of the output folder, you can either hit the
trash button to the right of the Output Folder, or you can rename the output
folder.

If you need to update the tour on your site, it’s most likely that you do not
need to re-upload all the files. If you’ve made changes only to the skin, just
upload the skin.js file and the images folder. If you’ve added any sounds or
videos, also upload the media folder.

See also…

• Tour Browser

• Using Node Markers

• Tour Map

• Building a Tour with a Ricoh Theta

• Direct Node Access

• Exporting

• Create an Intro Video