How a tour is built
Points, layers, locations, areas, places and destinations, and where each one shows up.
The six things a tour is made of
A tour is points, and five ways of working with them. A layer is a floor or a site, and every point sits on exactly one. A location is a folder of layers, for a building with several floors. An area is a named set of points, like a club house or a cafeteria. A place is an area that also carries a business card: hours, phone, menu. A destination is not a thing you make at all, it is a yes or no on a single point that decides whether visitors can be walked to it by name.
A point
A point is one 360 photograph at one spot. Points arrive through the import, not by hand. On the map an ordinary point is a plain dot with no label, and in the tour visitors walk between points with the round disc. A point on its own has no entry in the dash menu: you reach it by walking, or through the area, place or layer that holds it.
A layer
A layer separates one floor or one site from another: Main, 2nd Floor, the ferry dock. You make layers in the editor, and every point belongs to exactly one, which is what makes a layer different from an area. The map draws the layer you are standing on, so moving between layers swaps what is on screen. In the dash, layers appear as Locations cards, but only when two or more of them hold points: a tour on a single level is just the tour and draws no card.
What a layer is
A "layer" represents one level of a property, like a single floor of a building, or the interior versus exterior of a site. You're still building one single tour with one link, but layers let you organize it. When you open the Layers drawer, it lists every level you have. Each level gets its own set of points, paths, zones, and property maps. Visitors will seamlessly navigate these floors from a single link.
A location
A location is a part of the tour a visitor picks first, like a hotel and the island around it. You make one in the Front Desk, on its Locations screen, never in the editor. Press Make a location, name it what a visitor would call it, switch on the floors or areas that are in it, add or leave out single points on the map if you need to, then press Make this location. Everything you did not put in one becomes Main, which you can rename.
Each location has its own Places, and the tour's dash shows one card for each one plus a card for Main. Put the four Grand Hotel floors in a location called Grand Hotel and the dash shows one card for the building; open it and you get the hotel's own places. A location has no shape of its own on the map. It is a name and the points you put in it.
Until you make one, the tour is one place and every place sits in a single Places card, which is the right answer for most tours. Make one when part of the tour genuinely stands apart: a hotel with its floors, a ferry ride, a building on a campus. Take it off the tour undoes it and its points go back to Main, and when the last location goes, Main goes with it and the tour is one place again.
An area
An area gathers points under one name: Club House, Bridal Suite, Cafeteria, Camp Sites. You make areas in the editor. On the map an area draws as one labelled pin rather than scattering its points. In the dash it is counted on the Places card, and opening it lists the points inside. An area with no points in it draws nothing anywhere.
A place
A place is the card a visitor reads: name, category, hours, phone, website, menu. Places are made in the Front Desk only, never in the editor. A place must be given a front door, which is one point, and until it has one it draws nothing at all: no pin on the map and no card in the dash. With a front door it shows as a pin at that point, and as a card under Places filed by its category. If the place has floors of its own, set Its floors to the matching location and its card gains a Go inside button.
A destination
A destination is a switch on a single point, set in the editor, not a thing you create. Turn it on for somewhere people actually want to reach: an entrance, a parking area, a lawn, a gym, a trail head. A destination point shows its name on the map instead of a plain dot, and it fills the Navigate to list so a visitor can be walked there like a maps app. Leave it off for ordinary walking points.
Where each one shows up
| On the map | In the dash | |
|---|---|---|
| Point | a plain dot, no label | nothing on its own |
| Layer | the map draws the layer you are on | a Locations card, when 2+ layers hold points |
| Location | nothing of its own; its layers draw | one card for the building; opens its floors |
| Area | one labelled pin | counted on the Places card; opens its points |
| Place | one pin at its front door, or nothing without one | a card under Places, by category |
| Destination | its name beside the point | the Navigate to list |
Why Every point shows fewer than you expect
The Every point card counts the points on the layer you are standing on, not every point in the tour. A tour with 1,110 points spread over six layers shows 908 there when you are standing on the layer that holds 908 of them. Walking points are never counted: they are there to be walked through, not visited.