Poplar Day Centre – a day centre for the elderly offers elderly residents of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets a friendly environment for socialising, learning and stimulation. The centre offers a wide range of activities, including crafts, art, music and movement, darts, quizzes, crosswords, discussion groups, reflexology and a beauty group where visitors can have their hair set or nails done. It ensures that the elderly have somewhere to go where they can feel welcome, relaxed and among friends.

Eye Revolution were commissioned to create a set of virtual tours of the centre, so potential visitors can explore the centre before visiting, enabling them to feel that the settings are familiar even before they arrive. The centre created a soundtrack of people talking about the centre and what it has offered them, which plays while you view the 360 tours. The interactive interface allows viewers to understand the layout of the centre, and they can always tell where they are by referring back to the highlighted area of the floorplan. Viewers have the option of clicking a button to take the tours to fullscreen size, and can zoom in to see the detail.

Click the link to view the Poplar Day Centre virtual tours.

Eye Revolution are delighted to have been commissioned to shoot the Apple Store in-store at Comet. Some Comet stores have a virtual Apple Store complete with Apple experts to help customers with their Mac queries. We have created virtual tours showing Comet’s customers what they can expect from the Apple experience at Comet.

Click the link to view the Comet Apple Store virtual tours.

As some of our regular readers will know, we’re based in North London’s Crouch End and have been for the past 10 years or so. Our first neighbours in Crouch End were the lovely folk at Audio Gold – North London’s favourite audio destination – and they made us very welcome.

Audio Gold are now based in an old bank building at the Muswell Hill end of Park Road, and their large shop is a treasure trove for anyone who enjoys good music and wants to get a great audio set-up, or refine their existing set-up. They specialise in high quality second hand audio equipment, though they also have a second-hand vinyl area, do repairs on-site and have a prop hire department for everything from gramophones and amps to vintage computers.

Eye Revolution created a virtual tour for Audio Gold back when we were neighbours in their old premises in 2004. We are delighted to have been asked back to create a new 360 virtual tour of their new building. There are 5 separate virtual tours showing the different areas of the shop, from where customers can chill out with a coffee to listen to the gear, to the displays of the varied kit on sale. Click the link to view the Audio Gold Virtual Tour.

We’re pleased to present a new set of virtual tours which Eye Revolution have created for Audley’s new Clevedon Retirement Village. The village is a stunning development based around an old Victorian School, which was dismantled and then painstakingly rebuilt, brick-by-brick. Eye Revolution have created 360 imagery of key areas around the village, along with the Audley Club – a health and fitness club.

You can visit the link to view the Audley Clevedon Retirement Village virtual tours. Use the thumbnail scroller bar to change the tour you’re viewing.

In 1694, Admiral Edward Russell threw a party where the centrepiece was a punchbowl of epic proportions – the 6,000 guests were served punch from a huge specially-adapted fountain by a boy rowing across the lake of punch in a boat! In 2009 Courvoisier, along with the team at Bompas & Parr, have recreated Admiral Russell’s vision in a grand central London house. Their punchbowl is a huge construction inside one of the magnificent rooms in the Robert Adam building at 33 Portland Place.

Over a tonne of Courvoisier Exclusif was used to create 4,000 litres of a new cocktail called ‘The Emperor’s Shrub (and very good it was too, with a spicy winter fruit tang). The cocktail was created especially by Joe McCanta with Alex James (Blur) acting as a taste consultant.

The punchbowl was complete with little ‘tug boats’ masquerading as fruit cocktails (or perhaps the other way around….) and a giant orange slice on which members of the public could float, whilst becoming punch drunk from the fumes!

Click the link to view the Courvoisier architectural punch bowl virtual tour created by Eye Revolution.

20,000 people from 50 nations spent three years creating the Emirates Palace hotel. Rumoured to have cost around £2 billion to build, it is the world’s most expensive hotel.

The opulent surroundings feature 6000m² of 22 carat gold leaf; over 1,000 Swarovski crystal chandeliers (including some of the world’s largest chandeliers) and the world’s biggest dome, being higher than St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

And in the background, humans and machinery labour to maintain the impression of luxury. So the 13 restaurants are serviced by not 13, but nearly 130 kitchens and over 300 kitchen staff from chefs to kitchen porters. These 300 are just a small proportion of the 2,600 staff – three to each guest, who take care of guests’ every need. Including ferrying them around the massive landscaped gardens (over 1,000 acres) by golf cart. There are 140 elevators, so there can be no crowding, and you won’t be tripping over other people’s towels on the 1.3km private beach. And that’s assuming you didn’t reserve your sun lounger in advance.

The decadence doesn’t stop at the surroundings and service. Albino caviar is incredibly rare, with just 6kg available each year worldwide, costing £30,000 per kilo. The Emirates Palace gets 2 of these.

The rooms start at around £300 per night. But if you’re genuine or at least Hollywood royalty, then there’s always a rather special package, which will fly you and your guest here first class, give you somewhere to rest your weary head for 7 nights and chauffeur you around Abu Dhabi in a Maybach when you’re not being pampered in the spa. To ensure you get value for your money, you’ll also be offered a day trip to Iran in a private jet to create a Persian carpet, another to the Dead Sea in Jordan and a third to collect a pearl from the deep sea in Bahrain. If you’ve the time and the inclination, then you’ll be able to fit in a ‘Royal Golf experience’ at Abu Dhabi Golf Club and a session where you make your own perfume. If this isn’t enough, you’ll also be lavished with rare pearls and gifts from Holland & Holland Sporting Guns (which usually have a 2-3 year waiting list!).

And the price tag to open sesame this week of luxury – $1,000,000 USD.

For those whose budgets don’t quite run to this level, we’re delighted to be able to offer a glimpse into the Emirates Palace with this virtual tour – click the link to view the Emirates Palace 360 virtual tour.

If someone from abroad is asked to describe items synonymous with London, it’s likely that a red London bus would be in the top three. The Routemaster is the bus people tend to think of when describing this London icon – hardly surprising given that they were on the capital’s streets for 50 years. Now just 16 remain in service on two central London ‘heritage routes’, though these too will have disappeared by 2017. A long way past London Transport’s original retirement date of 1978!

Most Routemaster buses are now in private hands, owned by enthusiasts who take them to rallies or by private hire companies. Eye Revolution were commissioned to create virtual tours documenting the immaculate interior which has been lovingly cared for, ready to delight passengers for many years to come.

In case anyone is interested in this particular bus – its number is RML 2301 and it was built in 1965. It served passengers all over London and even had a spell in Surrey. It wasn’t always red either, at one point liveried in cream and maroon. There’s a strong possibility that several of the Eye Revolution staff travelled on this bus before its ‘retirement’, as it spent some years on the 19 route from Finsbury Park – not a million miles from our studio. In 2005, it was sold and restored to its former red livery with red and yellow checked upholstery.

….A new routemaster
In 2008, Transport for London ran a competiton to seek designs for a new bus. In December 2008, the joint first place winners were announced (Aston Martin with Foster + Partners and Capoco Design Ltd) and their designs are now with specialist bus manufacturers to come up with a final design. Transport for London have indicated that the first of these greener and more accessible buses could be on London’s streets by 2011.

In the meantime, please click the link to view the Routemaster Bus virtual tours

Note: With thanks to traditional-travel.co.uk for the information they have online about RML 2301!

There are lots of formats for virtual tours – Flash Player, Quicktime, DevalVR, Pangea, Java… and so we’re often asked why Flash is the recommended solution for most virtual tour projects. We’ve put together a basic FAQ explaining a little bit about Flash, why it’s a great format for 360 virtual tours and what additional features it offers.

Click the link to read about Flash virtual tours and Flash 10 and if you’re one of the 1.2% of people who don’t already have it installed, there’s also a link where you can download the Player for free.

Crowne Plaza Kensington in London have taken advantage of Eye Revolution’s world-class virtual tour service to allow their online visitors to explore the hotel before booking. The virtual tours show potential guests around the hotel restaurants and bars as well as the rooms and suites. The virtual tours also highlight the Crowne Plaza’s excellent business facilities including boardrooms, conference rooms and break out areas.

Click the link to view the Crowne Plaza Hotel virtual tours.

Saadiyat Island is an incredible development underway 700 metres off the coast of Abu Dhabi, UAE. The Cultural District is intended to draw discerning travellers from all around the globe to visit the cultural attractions on offer. These include Frank Gehry’s largest Guggenheim Museum, planned for completion in 2014, and The Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2012. Zaha Hadid has designed a spectacular performing arts center and world-class concert hall. The Cultural District Exhibition 2009 showcases the designs and latest plans for this multi-billion dollar development. The Saadiyat Island Cultural District Exhibition virtual tours allow online visitors to explore the plans and 3D models of Saadiyat Island from wherever they are in the world.

Please click the link to view the Saadiyat Island Cultural District Exhibition virtual tours.

Following the Ma_sters Tours earlier this year, Eye Revolution have now created virtual tours for the London College of Fashion campuses. Now potential students, lecturers, schools and anyone else who’s interested in the workings of this famous fashion institution can explore various settings within 5 separate LCF locations. Please click the links below to view the individual university virtual tours:

John Princes Street London College of Fashion virtual tours
Curtain Road London College of Fashion virtual tours
Mare Street London College of Fashion virtual tours
Golden Lane London College of Fashion virtual tours
Lime Grove London College of Fashion virtual tours

We’ve recently completed a cockpit virtual tour for the RAF Museum in Hendon. The Miles M.12 Mohawk is part of the Milestones of Flight Exhibition which guides visitors through some of the key milestones in the history of aviation – focussing on the first 100 years of flight.

To give a little bit of background, the Miles M.12 Mohawk is a two-seater aeroplane which was commissioned by American aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1936. He wanted the aircraft for fast travel around Europe on business trips with his wife. The plane is predominantly wooden and the seat backs move – this feature was included to allow the cockpit to convert into a bed in case the Lindberghs found themselves in a remote area and needed to stay overnight.

Only one of these planes was ever made, and this was presented by Lindbergh to the British Government at the outbreak of war in 1939. It was used as a communications aircraft (though not extensively) and was then written off in a landing accident returning to Spain from a rally in 1949. After more than 20 years, the aircraft’s remains were found, and were acquired by Mr. Louis (Lew) Casey of Charlottesville, Virginia (Curator of the National Air & Space Museum USA). In 2000 Mr Casey donated the aircraft to the RAF Museum and it was shipped to the UK where further restoration work was carried out before it was finally added to the Milestones of Flight collection in 2008.

The cockpit of these small aircraft are tricky to shoot as you’re in a tiny space (the photographer on this shoot was over 6′ tall which makes it tricky!). It’s vital to ensure that the shots are beautifully clean and clear so that visitors viewing the tours in the on-site kiosk can really feel as if they’re inside the cockpit. The sky was carefully retouched in (along with all of the reflections) to give a more exciting feel to the virtual tour. We think the results do the aircraft justice – but please do explore the fullscreen virtual tour yourself. Click here to view the Miles Mohawk virtual tour.

If you like this tour, you may also wish to view our Percival Mew Gull aeroplane cockpit virtual tour.

Eye Revolution have moved – we’re still in Crouch End but now have a bigger, better studio. We’re enjoying a wonderful view over Alexandra Palace and Muswell Hill, but wanted to share it. So we’ve rigged up a webcam, updating every 5 seconds, showing off our new view. It’s a whole lot of sky, and so we’re also adding some time-lapse highlights whenever we find something special or unusual.

Ally Pally hosts one of London’s biggest and most impressive fireworks displays. We’ll have a great view and so we’re already looking forward to being able to share that with you. Not that we’re wishing the summer away…!

In the meantime, you can check in anytime to see what the weather’s like in London, or just to enjoy the view and watch the clouds.

Click the link to see our new webcam page and the timelapse highlights.

Meanwhile, we’re going to keep exactly who the 2009 charity is under wraps for now but please do keep an eye on the blog where we’ll showcase what we think will be some very exciting virtual tours for them later on this year….

The virtual tours for the London College of Fashion Ma_sters exhibitions have just been launched. These two exhibitions were held at the Mall Galleries in Central London and showcase the final shows for the Masters degree students. The virtual tours are intended to provide an interactive document of the exhibition. The viewer can move from room to room and in each room and are able to click on hotspots within the virtual tours to bring up information about the exhibit.

Please click here to view the London College of Fashion Ma_sters Exhibition Part 1 Virtual Tour

Please click here to view the London College of Fashion Ma_sters Exhibition Part 2 Virtual Tour