I’m really trying to push Virtual Tours as part of our standard offering but there are pain points that continually cause frustration. Some are tied to the Enscape/upload process, which I’ve raised separately, but some are to do with the Virtual Tours themselves.
Perhaps because we don’t utilise Cloud Collaboration for anything other than Virtual Tours we’re missing a piece of the puzzle, but I would have thought a reasonable portion of users would be in a similar position as us (i.e. only use the Virtual Tours)?
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Hide/Deactivate Hotspots
I raised this a while ago (and attempted to resurrect it recently) in this thread:
Hide/Deactivate Hotspots
But am still yet to get a response. Perhaps no one else feels the same, but we continually run into scenarios where we want to set up the virtual tour, get the views and hotspots established, and have placeholder or quick draft panoramas set up. We then want to start sharing the tour, but only begin with a selection of the views actually viewable. Later on, we may want to remove some of the views from being viewable. There’s no mechanism in place to hide/deactivate these views without destroying the version history, the hotspot links, etc. -
Only Share The Tour, Not The Tour Homepage
In line with the above, and the recent thread I just started here (which should have probably just been captured in this post, apologies, feel free to merge) :
Limit Share Visibility To Only The Tour
If we do get views that aren’t publicly viewable or are disabled then it’s even more reason for viewers to not be able to click the “back” button and go to the main tour page and see all the hidden images and creation dates -
Multiple Floor Plans
Trying to cram a 3 or 4 level building onto one page is limiting, are there plans for multiple images to be marked as floor plans? There are some workarounds involving hotspots, but it involves several clicks in order to get to the correct floor plan image to then click on hotspots. -
Scroll in On Floor Plan
The actual floor plan view can be scrolled in and out (like all views) which is handy for when the hotspots start covering too much of the plan or there are multiple hotspots in a condensed area. However, when in a panorama view and clicking the floor plan swatch to bring up the ‘quick access’ floor plan, this plan isn’t scrollable. And the only way to get back to the ‘full size’ plan is to mainly scroll through the carousel and find it, which isn’t a great virtual tour experience. So could the ‘quick access’ floor plan also be scrollable/zoomable? -
Hotspot Icon Flexibility
Can the icons be allowed to be smaller? The current smallest size is still rather large (although it somewhat goes hand in hand with only being allowed one floor plan and having to cram multiple levels in one plan image). And there are some arrows, but they’re locked to always pointing up - can we rotate them? And potentially even upload our own image/icon files? -
Allow Floorplan To Be A Hotspot
The image marked as being the floorplan seemingly can’t be linked to as a hotspot, is this intentional and unavoidable? -
View/File Management
Management/organisation of files in tour home page is… clunky. Firstly, the only file display option is with thumbnails, and always of a fixed size. Just about every other file interface I can think of allows multiple display options - list the files, list the files with details, show thumbnails but allow the size of the thumbnails/grid to be adjusted, etc.
In order to re-order the views it requires so much manual clicking and dragging, one file at a time, and something that’s at the bottom of the pile that needs to move to the top requires so many stop-start-scroll up actions.
The more I think about it though, the more I’m wondering why the file ordering has to allow for custom order anyway? Why can’t it just be like every other file management interface and the files are the files, and the view order is either by file name or by date or whatever, but no custom ordering is ever offered. If the order needs to be a certain way then it should on the users to manage with their file naming OR there should be a completely separate interface purely dedicated to the carousel order (which would again likely be easier to sort and order with a large list of file names and details rather than only ever seeing a handful of small panorama thumbnails that aren’t always decipherable) -
Allow sub-folders
There’s no option for creating subfolders, or for having any real sort of organisation to the files. It’s just one big dumping ground. If it was possible to have sub-folders it would help a ton for managing versions or areas when projects get larger, or we want to split the floor plans from the panoramas from the still images, etc. -
Display Name And File Name
For many obvious reasons we might want a very specific naming convention for the files/images, however, this isn’t necessary that ‘presentable’ as the image/panorama name when viewed in the live Virtual Tour. When adding hotspots there is an option for a separate ‘Label Title’ to be added to the hotspot icon, however, when you then click the hotspot and go to the view there’s no reference or mention of this label. I would like to propose that the “Label Title” is moved out of the hotspot settings, and is instead included as part of the actual file settings, so that there is both the original file name, and a “display name”. This display name is then used for the hotspot title as well as the view title at the top of the screen when that view is active. The pano thumbnails in the admin/home page area already display Name, Time Stamp, and Comment Icon, so it seems like there could also be a field in there showing what the Display Name is? -
Auto Hotspots On Floor Plan
Is it possible to automatically generate hotspots on a floor plan? I’ll admit as soon as I think about this one in any more detail I begin to see all the technical issues associated… But I’m willing to give it more thought if it sounds like something that would be hypothetically be possible and/or has been raised before as a wishlist item?? -
Auto Hotspots By Proximity Not Carousel Order
This one is potentially similar to the above in terms of being a significant technical challenge, but currently when generating hotspots automatically it’s either “Previous and next” or it’s “All panoramas”. Both of these options are a bit limiting. Once a tour reaches a certain size then “All panoramas” just becomes meaningless and it’s a roll of the dice where you end up cause there’s so many hotspots and they don’t really relate to the current image. “Previous and next” is okay if the carousel order make sense sequentially, but this isn’t always the case, or there are some views that logically split off into 3 or 4 different “paths” and as such want more than just the previous and next hotspot shown. If there was a way to auto hotspot by proximity to the current location I think it could be a pretty big improvement (although I could be convinced otherwise pretty easily), but that brings me to the next item: -
Auto Hotspots For Current View Only
Unless I’m missing something, it appears than when automatically generating hotspots it does so for every panomara in the tour? If I just wanted to regenerate or create auto hotspots in the current view only (or a selection of views only) there doesn’t appear to be a mechanism for this?
This could also solve the “previous and next” issue from the previous point in that if I could Auto Hotspot for the current view only, then it seems like it should be possible to manually select from the list of views which ones to generate hotspots for? E.g. I’m in Room A and I click “Auto Hotspot Current View” and then there’s a list of the views and I can select “View 2”, “View 7”, and “View 11” to all be auto added to this view. And then in future I return to Room A, I bring up the hotspot list, and I just toggle on “View 13” if I need to add that additional hotspot.(Of course all of this relies on the hotspots actually being generated in the correct location, which doesn’t appear to be the case currently, but I’ve flagged that separately.)
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Duplicate File Names Shouldn’t Be Allowed
Perhaps this is tied up with the upload management system, but when uploading a new file of the same name a prompt is given that the name already exists, and do you want to upload as replacement or as new file. I think the check for the duplicate file name is good, as is the option/confirmation that it will be superseding an existing file, but the option to allow a new file of the exact same name to be uploaded and exist doesn’t make sense to me and causes a whole ton of confusion. Again, thinking of other file management interfaces I can’t think of a single one that allows duplicate files of the same name to co-exist along side each other. I think this option should either be removed entirely, or the duplicate file needs to have some sort of “_Copy” suffix added.
I’m also wondering if perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree entirely and there isn’t really a future for Virtual Tours as we want to use them? I can imagine that a ton of development resources are being diverted towards AI related features (for better or worse) and it also seems like the 3D Streaming is getting more attention than the Virtual Tours? So someone please tell me now if our energies/workflows are likely better spent else where!
Our issue with 3D streaming/stand alone has always been the free navigation (and I think it lacks VR headset ability?). We don’t always want viewers to be able to navigate around the model themselves - not every one is that good at it and those that are frequently end up in areas that aren’t necessarily ready for public viewing. Being able to set a limited number of locations, and simplifying the navigation to click and drag only, and being able to also view in VR headset without requiring third party apps, is all we really want/need a lot of the time.
Anyways, sincere thanks to anyone who actually reads and responds to any of this. Perhaps these issues are better flagged individually and at the time rather than dumping out months of feedback in one post as I’ve just done, but it takes a bit of time to separate myself from the actual job at hand, to then do testing and confirm behaviour, to then taking screenshots and logging in, to then seeing a new version was released yesterday and I have to do it all again, then actually writing the post in a way that has at least some hope of being understood etc. etc. so these sporadic appearances and novel length threads are all I have.