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3D Vista Software - 360's Alternative4492

WGAN Standard
Member
Las Vegas
VTLV private msg quote post Address this user
Hey Guys,

While Dan is in Tokyo out looking ways Matterport and other services can help us with Google Street View and Map sales, many of us continue to wonder how to figure out how we can offer other ways to give 360 services to our clients who will not pay for the Matterport service. I may have found a service for our cheaper clients without losing them or only being able to offer a photo shoot with slide show as “virtual” with more editing time and fees for slide show service.

I am about to take on a 30 day trial of 3D Vista Software. Has anyone tried out the 3D Vista Pro Software? I have seen it mentioned only twice on the forum with zero details.

The 3d Vista program can allow us to make Panoramic shots with the Ricoh Theta or use our DSLR cameras to shoot 360’s in 3-8 shots with a simple stitching software.

The panoramas can become 360’s that could then be uploaded to our own websites or onto the 3D vista servers starting at $99/year. This should save time over other programs requiring heavy editing time for us to stitch and enhance 360’s with the auto merge feature. We may have to come out of pocket with audio that could be covered with a site like Audio Blocks.

When I upload my current Ricoh 360’s to sites like Roundme, Kuula.co or Spinattic.com, the images get distorted much like adding our photos to Facebook with a huge loss of quality. The hope with this trial is to keep the quality I originally shot as single stills or in HDR that can have quality kept when uploading to our own webpage or 3d Vistas web hosting that has been lost when using these other web services. This is all hope at the moment, until I review the trial.

3D Vista may be the best alternative for us to offer 360’s to clients who run across our Matterport offerings and want to flee when we bring up our pricing. What I have learned from other photographers is not to advertise our pricing and negotiate what we can offer based on the clients budget and what is best for our overall cost of doing business. This software could allow us to offer a cheaper 360 service from Matterport or Imover.

The 3D Vista Pro software comes out to be $500 US dollars. This cost comes out cheaper as a one time purchase broken up into the year fr $42 - $50/ month for software. This could become free on year 2, unless we pay yearly for hosting on 3D Vistas server if we choose not to incorporate the data into our own web hosting depending on your knowledge of FTP.

If you do not yet own a Ricoh or HDR camera with Fisheye there could be more expenses, but less than another competitors equivalent to Matterport products and continued hosting (buying one of these services does not allow us to have a low or middle offering between our Matterport service).

My general consensus from fellow members has become; they cannot sustain a living off of Matterport only. We now need to compete with still photographers, drone offerings or video walk through’s to offer more than just Matterport. This service offer's video possibilities.

My hope is 3D Vista can allow us to offer a few 360’s with DSLR or Ricoh 360’s, perhaps a floor plan or short videos or panorama offerings over slide show still photos and bring our clients on bard t by Matterport tours.

Has anyone tried this program? Will anyone else try the 30 day trial with me and share what you learn?

We could then upload the tours to our liking at our desired location.

Many of us hoped to offer Matterport as the all in one 360 service to offer Dollhouse and floor plan offerings. Other providers such as Immomover and Iguide offer comparable alternatives, many of us have decided they interrupt our cost of doing business while fronting Matterport fees. More fees hold us back. Do you think this service could be our link between high class Matterport offerings and Middle class 360's?
Post 1 IP   flag post
LetMe3D private msg quote post Address this user
@VTLV I will be very interested in hearing your finding. I will look into this as well. Lets stay in touch.
Post 2 IP   flag post
SiteTour360 private msg quote post Address this user
Thanks for bringing this to our attention! I have done a cursory look-over and the program looks pretty well polished....will be looking into it more and looking forward to your feedback!
Post 3 IP   flag post
WGAN Standard
Member
Las Vegas
VTLV private msg quote post Address this user
This could give the floor plan offering as well if we go for the pro version and keep well under the competitor offerings at $3k+. Many opportunities here for middle class sales.

Let's dig deeper into this program for more offerings as a medium service above still photography sold as Slide Shows. We could offer photo stills, 360's, floor plan and possibly video. Take it a a step further with services like Screen Cast O Matic at $15 for videos.

Then get our Part 107 for drones and use @JonJ's photo editing to speed up our photo offerings, push Zillow Walk Through videos and go crazy with showing we are virtual tour providers without waiting any longer technology to catch up or paying stupid fees to everyone that sucks us dry. We could offer so much as true virtual tour providers now!

Then push our clients to buy Matterport once they got a taste of our other services as they climb for the best product being Matterport.
Post 4 IP   flag post
grmngrl private msg quote post Address this user
@VTLV I use 3DVista.
Post 5 IP   flag post
LetMe3D private msg quote post Address this user
@VTLV I am with you 100% and @grmngrl canyon offer any insight to the app?
Post 6 IP   flag post
WGAN Standard
Member
Las Vegas
VTLV private msg quote post Address this user
@grmngrl , Tell us more!!!
Post 7 IP   flag post
JonJ private msg quote post Address this user
@VTLV,
Can you tell me what the shortcomings are of Immoviewer Platform?
Thanks,
Jon
Post 8 IP   flag post
Frisco, Texas
Metroplex360 private msg quote post Address this user
@JonJ Relies on a Ricoh Theta S, which is subpar.
Post 9 IP   flag post
JonJ private msg quote post Address this user
If that is the only reservation, then I would tell you to consider https://www.vieweet.com

They allow any number of pano sources and will also stitch images on their platform. They are also significantly cheaper than immoviewer and allows for the integration of various types of media and hyperlinks.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Jon J
Post 10 IP   flag post
Woods private msg quote post Address this user
@grmngrl,
Can you change the movement (click to pan) options to make it similar to other software, like matterport or ricoh?

Their photo loading times don't seem great, and some of the buttons are not responsive or intuitive. But overall the layout and options look really good. And compared to 6 months ago the overall layout, hotspots, and options are much improved.

Look forward to hearing others use cases.
Post 11 IP   flag post
WGAN Standard
Member
Las Vegas
VTLV private msg quote post Address this user
Hey Jon,

My short comings with Immover starts with the monthly service fee. This fee becomes $839/year as a cost of doing business in hosting alone all year after your first sale. Not to include drive time, shoot and editing.

Yes, some of these sales can get shared with other tour sales if you can sell up to 11 more tours within the same year. To be frank, most of these homes will be advertised for a minimum of six months, so six tours would have to be sold quickly after the first, just to cover the cost of doing business for the year with hopeful sales of six more that could linger into the next year. A sale in month 11, does not quite sustain for the past 10 months, it needs to cover future hosting.

Six sales need to happen all in the same 1st couple months just to to make up $900 in order to cover the cost for one full year of hosting at Immoviewer whether you have 1 - 12 tours. Your overall "Hope" is to get the additional 6 more sales after your 1st six, just to help cover our travel and editing time after the hosting is covered by "Hope" of a first 6 sales.

I don't operate on "Hope". That's like Uber drivers being happy they made a few dollars immediately without realizing they need to stash money for a faster need of oil changes, tires, taxes to uncle sam and other road hazards. Plus, they don't realize, they're making a wage similar to pizza delivery drivers after their cost of doing business. As the car wears out, many are not factoring for the cost of the next car investment to keep themselves in business while maintaining the current vehicle.

If you were to sell five Ricoh 360's at $150 to a client at $150. This is only $25 cheaper than an agent getting 35 images with a slide show sold as "virtual" with a year of hosting. So what persuaded the agent to go 360 for five shots? They would rather stay in their safe space of photos. Big hurdle to overcome.

We, as virtual tour providers, need to appeal to the agent to get them to buy a different product other than the traditional photo slide show offered as "virtual". We need to show them we can over virtual opportunities other than their photo gallery in a slide show fashion.

Is five 360 photos enough for the agent to be pursued'ed to buy five 360's? Does the time make sense for us to go shoot for less than $150 plus our travel and editing time? We're trying to get agents to go 360 and break the side show sold as virtual and not get eaten alive in hosting by month 3 that dissolves our profit.

Let's say you sell five Ricoh 360's as a tour to an agent at $150, the clarity of shots are already a little grainy using Ricoh. You pay monthly and not annually at $79/mo. You make zero profit on month 2. 3D vista offers some panorama options on our DSLR's that may help with clarity issues if we have time to learn and try. I recently lost a hotel gig that could A, offer google maps and B, offer this 360 capability I have not perfected going into programs like Panotour which requires a longer editing time.

You are now upside down for hosting when you sell to an agent with an overpriced listing that didn't sell in 2 months who paid you $150 for five 360's. You're beat up in hosting alone within 3 months, not including travel, shoot and editing time. If you brand tours to your own page, you spent even more time editing and embedding.

At the moment, using software like 3D Vista, you pay once for software and that cost of business does not go up each month. Hosting could be another issue for many if they decide to use 3D Vistas hosting platform. I use Dreamhost with unlimited hosting where I hope I can add my tours to a sub domain at no additional fee.

Let's say I buy 3D Vista Pro at $500 and host 1 gig on their hosting plan. I'm out $600 this year. Four shoots pays for the software and hosting as to six sale sare needed on Immoviewer. Next year, one shoot handles my hosting for the hosting charge at 3d Vista vs almost $900 at Immoviewer again. I could even cycle out an old shoot that sold to stay under 1 gig hosting capacity.

Vieweet sounds interesting on the surface with 20 tours for $240. Since I already have fisheye for my ipad. I wonder if it would work here with hotspot to my android, since it's only made for Iphone. But it limits us with the offerings at $250. Where 3d Vista offering possibilities can go into making floor plans, videos and some drone footage into other tour possibilities and branding back to our pages instead of 3rd parties.
Post 12 IP   flag post
grmngrl private msg quote post Address this user
@Woods yes you can pan adjust the movement between the sphere's. I suggest to try out the software and play around with it. They have a free trial available.
Post 13 IP   flag post
grmngrl private msg quote post Address this user
@VTLV what would you like to know? I would really recommend using the free trial. Not everything is right for everybody.

I have unfortunately only used it once so far as I do not do much real estate. I am waiting to purchase the new iris360 because I really hate the subpar results from the Ricoh Theta s.

At that point I anticipate that will use the software on a regular basis.

I had a few clients that would like to host their tour by them selfs. You can create a bucket on the Amazon AWS server fairly easy now days.

I feel it is better to give my customers options rather than saying " no you can not host the tour"
Post 14 IP   flag post
WGAN Standard
Member
Las Vegas
VTLV private msg quote post Address this user
@grmngrl and @Metroplex360,

You guys hit the nail on the head. Ricoh is subpar, I'm not comfortable selling it as the medium when Matterport is too expensive to agents. Still looking for that middle class sale when Matterport comes off to expensive. But need some kind of 360 to sell for the agent to use in social media. They want usage of some 360's beyond Matterport.

Agents in my town continue to struggle with competition from 1% listing agents or our lack of inventory suggesting they don't need to market homes.

We 360 providers need a medium offering which has been my argument for every offering shared on this forum. When the expense gets too high, we are back to charging Matterport rates for these other services that scare off the cheap buyers. I still want to negotiate with these tire kickers and win a few deals.

@grmngrl Q's:

- Can Ricoh be used with this service and come out with better quality than we are getting with 3rd party web services like Roundme, Kuula or Spinnatic? Especially if we host ourselves? My Ricoh shots look good on the Ipad and go to crap when they get placed online.

- How do you like the photo stitching software, is it easy to use like the video suggests? Pano shots alone could help us sell panos that were once popular 15 years ago before the zoom in on a portrait took over during the recession as a cheap alternative to "Virtual".

- have you integrated video into these tours? Many people who love Matterport want us to use a drone to fly down to the front door and navigate the home with Matterport. This is a huge video up sell we could all offer that our clients request. An offering for those of us with the Commercial Drone License in the states can offer, other countries may vary. But we could slide panos and do walk through's with stills when video can be installed.

- have your tried using DSLR shots to make 360's with this software? I like the feature allowing our logo at the bottom instead of editing out our tripods. Does it take long to stitch? This software looks easier than other pano tours requiring much longer editing time we have to pass as a cost to the client.

- If you are not using the service for real estate, How do you use the service?
Post 15 IP   flag post
grmngrl private msg quote post Address this user
#1 yes you can use the Ricoh Theta s. I don't see how you will get a better outcome. It is a cheap camera and you can not expect to get DSLR quality from it.

#2 I have only used PTGui for stitching I had this program first before I bought 3D Vista. I can unfortunately not speak to 3D Vista Stitcher.

#3 http://www.3dvista.com/en/support/tutorials
You can find there anything that you need to know on how to add a flying video to the startup screen

I provide Virtual Tours for Businesses.
Post 16 IP   flag post
WGAN Forum
Founder &
WGAN-TV Podcast
Host
Atlanta, Georgia
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user
Hi All,

Here's a 360º photo sphere I shot with the Ricoh Theta S (with HDR on) – this morning at breakfast in Tokyo.

What do you think of the quality? (I am very happy with it: especially since it was super-bright outside and somewhat dark inside.

@grmngrl I used Round.Me to host this 360º photo sphere.

While immoviewer seamlessly uses a Ricoh Theta S, you can shoot 360º photo spheres with ANY 360º camera and then upload them to the immoviewer platform.

Dan
Post 17 IP   flag post
WGAN Standard
Member
Las Vegas
VTLV private msg quote post Address this user
Dan, I think your shot looks great! For some reason, everything I shoot these days looks grainy. Maybe it's my settings, maybe it's the my tripods getting shake or it's the Vegas sun in my climate.

Would you agree that Ricoh tends to have better clarity on the front lens over the back?

@DanSmigrod, I don't want to step on toes of your current vendors. Would you be open to looking at 3DVista when time allows? They have told me they are interested in offering a discount to We Get Around forum members to offer another middle 360 offering if you guys can come to an agreement on your side.

I am not quit sure if their images come off any better online if we use their hosting or our own pages. I think a lot of my issues come down to shooting better images off the Ricoh first.

I'll keep practicing and report back to you guys if you are ears for info.
Post 18 IP   flag post
DanielDI private msg quote post Address this user
I am glad that I found this. I have been digging and comparing PTGui and Giga for past few days. It is frustrating when comparing products that is similar. I finally purchased AutoPano Giga + Krpano + AutoPano Tour Pro. Started using it for few days now. So far everything is smooth.
Post 19 IP   flag post
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