Recently we commissioned a 360 film-shoot in one of our new show-homes in Quinton Fields - you can read more info about this from Katie’s post here (although she threw me under the bus by promising a post tomorrow - I’m nothing if not renowned for my woeful communication).

I can confirm that Katie, Sam and myself did visit White Crow Studios in Lichfield to see the process behind producing the immersive 360 walkthroughs and have a quick play at some compatible technology.

We went in with an established opportunity to trial the technology out at least once more, for a new retirement living development that’s currently under construction - and a view to considering the best way to progress this sort of technology within the business.

White Crow offer the full range of options - from carrying out the photo shoots and hosting the property walkthroughs on their own account, to supplying the cameras, licenses and hosting of the images ourselves. As this is a developing opportunity and white crow charges a respectable fee for doing all the work themselves, we’re of the mindset to hold off buying a camera (which is still quite affordable for the technology on offer) until the value and opportunities within sales, marketing and elsewhere can be better understood.

Otherwise, we were interested in what the Matterport package could offer in terms of embedding video/text overlays (called tags), with the potential to be used for property walkthroughs and repairs FAQs.

Finally, the ability to view the 360 images through a range of available consumer-grade virtual reality headsets (from the entry-level Google Cardboard to more intensive HTC Vive) is a unique selling point, specifically for attracting attention at sales stands or at sales offices, similar to the ideas we were mapping out at last weeks SOchat hour, hosted with Bromford Lab.

For sure, my new internal directory mugshot…

So in summary, the tech is good, affordable and the partnership willing. Watch this space for more info on virtual viewings!