Virtual Tour Company - Eye Revolution, London

Using Flash 10 for Virtual Tours

Eye Revolution create world-class 360 virtual tours in Flash 10 format. While clients are free to pick and choose from a whole variety of formats (click here to read more about different formats), we consider that Flash 10 is the best solution for most 360 tour projects. We’ve put together a brief guide to Flash 10 virtual tours to answer some of the most frequently asked questions.

Why would I need Flash for my virtual tours?

Virtual tours need to use a ‘plug-in’ – a plugin (in this instance) is a little added extra that enables you to view virtual tours through your web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox etc).

Do my virtual tours have to be in Flash?

We provide virtual tours in whatever format you wish, to be viewed by different plugin types. There are other virtual tour viewing formats such as QuickTime VR, Deval VR, Java and Pangea which can also be provided. However, these formats do not allow the advanced functionality available when using Flash 9 and 10.

Is Flash 10 widely used?

Here’s what Adobe say about Flash Player: “Flash Player is a cross-platform browser plug-in that delivers breakthrough Web experiences to over 99% of Internet users.”

The table below shows the penetration of Flash in different markets as at June 2009.

Flash Player Penetration Table

Flash has become commonplace technology for the delivery of rich media content with both Google, YouTube and the BBC utilising this technology to deliver content to viewers.

Why Use Flash Player for 360 Virtual Tours?

In addition to the growing ubiquity of the format, Flash 10 also offers the smoothest viewing environment for virtual tours with vastly improved frame rates with some users reporting up to 150 frames per second.

Flash 10 allows us to provide a high degree of interactivity. Virtual tours can be displayed within an interactive interface. This makes navigation easy and enhances the user experience. So within the virtual tour environment you have a choice of elements to include, such as...

Navigation options

Floorplan or map graphic which allows the user to navigate between different locations whilst remaining orientated within the space or geographical area.
Floor arrows allowing the viewer to ‘walk through’ a space by clicking on a doorway or path to change locations.
Thumbnail scroller – this allows viewers to have thumbnails of the other locations within the virtual tour interface on their screen at all times.

Multimedia options

Hotspots which indicate to viewers that further information is available. Thus, when you wish to highlight an element within the scene the viewer may click a hotspot to reveal a point of interest.
We can include audio files which work with your virtual tours. This could be a soundtrack, a voiceover or even sound effects.
Movies can be included within your virtual tours to provide an enhanced user experience.

Our multimedia experts create bespoke interfaces to meet your requirements. So if you have another option in mind for your virtual tours which isn’t mentioned above, just let us know and we’ll investigate it for you.

What if someone only has Flash 9 installed?

Flash 10 content can be viewed by users who only have the Flash 9 Plugin installed and so does not require an upgrade of the Plugin. We can provide virtual tours in Flash 8 but frame rates are lower, the appearance is more ‘jagged’ and segmented and advanced functionality (such as hotspots for example) cannot be included.

What about accessibility?

The Flash architecture allows us to create 360 virtual tours which are WC3 accessibility compliant.

To conclude

For most 360 virtual tours Flash 10 provides the smoothest images, the best interactivity and excellent accessibility. You can rest assured that at Eye Revolution, we use our technical expertise to stay at the cutting edge of new technology, so your virtual tours can work their hardest for your business.