3D Virtual Tours: The Basics
3D virtual tours are being used in real estate to increase traffic to listings now more than ever, but have you considered how well they could affect the traffic to your business? Retailers are using Matterport in 3D Virtual Tours and Virtual Reality to expand their in store inventory by showing their customers items that may not be in the showroom. As more and more people shop online, the brick and mortar stores are becoming more scarce. In order to stand out above the rest you need to consider ways to do that. By increasing your social media presence online people tend to spend more time on your site. But is that really enough to increase traffic online and in your store? Have you considered other ways to boost foot traffic as well as online traffic?
3D Virtual Reality has become a tangible force in our daily lives. More and more types of 3D virtual tours are available to us today, such as hotels, vacation resorts, retail shops and even more. Being up on current technology is noticeable to customers, it lets them know you are doing what it takes to stay up to date on the most recent trends.
One way to do that is to have a professional certified 3D virtual tour service handle that for you. If you are not familiar with a what 3D virtual tour is let’s review that together. 3D virtual tours are created by using scans taken with the Matterport camera. The camera is set up in an area of a room and a scan is taken, the camera is then moved approximately 8-10 feet away and another scan is taken, this process continues until all areas of the room(s) are complete. The second part of the process is when the scans are uploaded to the Matterport Cloud, where the software creates a 3D model. When the project comes back from the Matterport Cloud we then edit, customize and refine your 3D Virtual Tour. The completed 3D Virtual Tour is ready to be sent to the customer and uploaded to their website and shared on their social media accounts.
We mentioned Matterport earlier in our blog and we wanted to share a little more information on their camera and how we became one of their 3D Virtual Tour Service providers. Our company had to first purchase a Matterport Pro2 3D camera and activate our Cloud Service Plan with them, then we had to create projects and pass their quality assurance approval of our projects. Once they reviewed our projects, we were given the official title of Matterport Service Partner and are now on their website. You can find us by going to the Matterport website and searching for Midwest Aero Technologies in the Detroit/Metro area.
Now let’s discuss how you utilize the information you just learned about. First, contact a Matterport Service Partner, such as ourselves. Meet with your MSP (Matterport Service Partner) and discuss with them what type of end result you are interested in getting. Physically walk through the business and discuss what areas you are most interested in highlighting on your website and social media accounts. Let them know if you are planning on selling items directly from the 3D Virtual Tour, yes, this can be done. Once you and your MSP have come up with an idea of where to scan and the areas of greatest interest to your business you can schedule your appointment.
Once the scanning is completed and the processing and editing is complete, additional items can be added to take your 3D Virtual Tour to an entirely new level. The use of Mattertags are crucial in showcasing or highlighting areas or items of interest. Things that will catch the eye of your shoppers. A Mattertag is a window that opens above or next to the area of interest you are showcasing and either text, video or a link to another site can go into that box. Your customer can stop the 3D Virtual Tour and click on that Mattertag and look at that information or web link or whatever you decide to put into it.
Now your project is complete and it is ready to upload to your website and share on your Social Media. There are a couple ways to showcase your tour. One is the Highlight Reel which, when you press play it automatically opens up to a 3D Virtual Tour and it shows like a video, but you can stop and move around the room or stop to view Mattertags or other areas of the tour. It also shows all your photos like a filmstrip at the bottom of your project. Another is to click through the 3D Virtual Tour manually, again being able to move around each area or explore the Mattertags. You can also have your Walk-Through or Virtual Tour tailored to instrumental music. This is a nice way to showcase your project.
Once all your decisions are made and your project is complete it’s time to share it with everyone! You will be given the project in specific formats to post to your webpage as well as your social media accounts. From the finished project we can also create a black and white floor plan and label each room with precise measurements and labels. We can also create a “doll-house” 3-Dimensional interactive scaled project.
We hope this information has given you new ideas how to really reach people in an entirely new way! We know everything is about social media these days and people are using their phones more than ever to look for Restaurants, Retail Shops, Car Dealerships, Event Venues and so many more.
We hope you are ready to join us in taking your business to the next level!
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