What is a virtual building tour?
Essentially, a virtual building tour is an immersive digital experience that allows users to explore a building remotely. Using advanced technologies like 3D modelling, high-definition photography, and sometimes even augmented reality (AR), these tours reproduce real environments in a virtual setting. Users could interact via a smartphone, tablet, desktop computer, or VR headset. There are also different formats that a virtual tour may take:
‘Walk-through’ video
Walk-through videos offer a first person view of a property, captured by carrying a stabilised camera along pre-planned routes through a building. Carrying the viewer along hallways and around rooms to showcase features and the layout of a building, walk-through videos convey a sense of space that still photographs can’t capture. Videos like this can be easily uploaded to websites and shared on social media.
3D doll’s house view
The 3D doll’s house view, as seen in our Matterport service, provides a miniature, interactive model of a space, allowing users to see it from every angle. This view helps users understand the layout and spatial relationships within the property. It’s particularly useful for visualising how different rooms connect and for planning renovations or interior design changes.
3D walk-through virtual tour
The 3D walk-through virtual tour allows users to “walk” through a building and look around in 360 degrees as if they were actually there. Our Matterport service provides both this 3D walk-through element and the 3D doll’s house view, giving viewers a comprehensive overview of a building. 3D walk-through tours allows users to move from room to room, explore different levels, and even inspect detailed features like fixtures and fittings.
Key applications of virtual building tours
There are so many ways to use a virtual building tour. In fact, once you’ve commissioned one, you might continue to discover additional uses for the product! They’re incredibly engaging and versatile, and can be used on multiple platforms. Here are some key uses:
Property marketing
In the property sector, virtual tours are becoming a staple for marketing properties. They offer potential buyers or tenants the opportunity to explore multiple properties prior to an in-person visit.
This is particularly useful if the prospective buyers or tenants aren’t local to the properties they wish to view – a virtual viewing will allow them to decide whether the property is of interest to them before committing to an in-person viewing.
Experience marketing
For the culture and entertainment industries, virtual tours provide a unique way to create engaging content. They can be used to promote events, showcase tourist attractions, or even offer virtual museum tours. This innovative approach can help attract a broader audience and drive engagement.
Building maintenance
For building managers and maintenance teams, virtual tours offer a highly practical solution for keeping digital records of where all the services (such as emergency exits, electrical control panels, gas and water pipes, etc) are located in a building. When a portfolio may cover dozens of properties or locations, remote access to virtual records like this can greatly speed up the planning and execution of maintenance activities.
Construction site progress
By capturing virtual tours of entire construction sites on a regular basis, construction progress and any potential challenges can be shared rapidly with entire teams. With the addition of floating tags in the 3D tours, specific tasks / problems can be highlighted with ease.
Benefits of virtual building tours
With such a variety of high quality and innovative virtual tour services now available, it’s no wonder virtual building tours have become so popular. Some of their benefits include:
Convenience
Virtual tours can be accessed anytime, anywhere, and on any platform (laptop, tablet or mobile), eliminating the need for travel. This is particularly helpful for international buyers or tenants who cannot easily visit properties in person.
Value
Commissioning a virtual tour is a very cost effective method for marketing or keeping a lasting record of a property or site. Virtual tours can reduce the need for physical site visits, saving unnecessary travel time and expenses. Footage can be used in multiple ways, making it a versatile piece of marketing collateral. Allowing prospects to explore a property virtually before visiting in person can reduce the duration of in-person visits, allowing more visits to be fitted into the same time frame.
Engagement
Virtual tours are an engaging form of media that can capture the interest of potential customers. Whether in the form of a video, or an interactive tour, including a virtual tour on a property listing, case study page, or your social media is sure to generate additional interest and increase dwell time for your marketing collateral.
Benefits of in-person building tours
While virtual tours offer many advantages, in-person building tours still hold significant value. This is especially true when it comes to the sales process where emotion plays a part.
Sensory experience
An in-person visit allows individuals to engage all their senses. They can touch surfaces, hear ambient noises, and even smell the environment. These sensory experiences can play a crucial role in the decision making process when it comes to home sales.
Immediate feedback
During a real life tour, buyers or tenants can ask questions and receive immediate answers. This face to face interaction can help clarify doubts and provide a deeper understanding of the property.
Emotional connection
Visiting a property in person can create an emotional connection that is harder to achieve through a virtual tour. The overall ambiance and the feel of a space can be a powerful decision maker.
Best of both worlds
To be completely pragmatic, viewing virtual and in-person tours as mutually exclusive is unhelpful. Instead, we should look at how these two experiences can work in tandem to make property tours and inspections better for everyone.
Initial screening
Virtual tours can serve as an excellent initial screening tool. Potential buyers or tenants can explore properties online prior to an in person visit. Then if / when they do decide to visit in person, they are likely to be more seriously interested in the property.
Enhanced understanding
By using virtual tours in a maintenance or construction environment, entire sites can be quickly and comprehensively digitised, allowing many more people to be kept up to speed with progress / solve problems collaboratively.
Broader reach
The engagement value of virtual tours should not be overlooked when trying to expand the reach of your marketing material. As virtual tours become more commonplace, prospective tenants are starting to expect to see them on property listings, and those listings without them are likely to get poorer viewing figures as a result.
Of course, a virtual tour is only as good as the quality of the equipment and the skill of the operator using it – this is why it’s so important to work with a professional videographer when creating virtual tours for your business / property listing. Here at Horizon Imaging, our constant drive to deliver the highest quality imagery continues to delight our clients – check out some of our customer testimonials below!
What Do Our Clients Say?
“Very happy with David’s service! Communication is key and he nails it. Easy to arrange appointment, he is flexible and came on time. Great quote and great finish. He had the product ready within 1 day and is always happy to help further. If you want your property photography and 3d imagery done to a high standard, David is the guy to go with. Looking forward to doing business with you in the future.”
“David is a pleasure to deal with, he has always pre-empted the requirements of the job and never fails to deliver fantastic results!”
“Horizon Imaging exceeded all expectations and I would highly recommend David to anyone wanting a Matterport virtual tour. We had contacted David towards the end of 2023 and again early 2024 where he provided us with a lot of knowledge and insight into what could be achieved. We wanted a tour of one of our ICF builds to use at an upcoming exhibition and future training, the turnaround was exceptionally fast and the tour looked fantastic and was a great hit at our exhibition. Thank you for all of your help and we look forward to working with you again.”
So, ask yourself:
- Are you looking to create a professional virtual building tour that will convey the quality of your building?
- Do you understand the importance of representing spaces accurately to your clients?
- Do you want to work with an experienced and reliable photographer to support your marketing strategy?
If so, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on the contact details below.