Here is how to make an interactive 360 map of your property that visitors can walk.

Start by planning the walk

Every good tour starts as a list of spots. Open Scouting from the tour's card on your dashboard, mark every place a photo must be taken, and add a short note for the photographer where it helps, like a gate code.

Plan a spot about every 30 feet, because even spacing is what makes stepping between photos feel like walking. A small property usually runs 30 to 50 spots, and a campground or a school 150 or more. To shorten the shoot, keep the tight spacing at entrances and junctions and stretch the straight runs.

Send the plan as a link. Your photographer works it as a numbered checklist on their phone, and you watch each spot turn teal as it is captured.

Get the camera ready before you drive out

Use the camera you already own, as long as it saves standard 360 photos. For a large property, a camera with GPS built in is worth it, because every photo then lands on the map where it was taken. Set it before you leave: photo mode, GPS on, auto power down off.

Check the weather too, because low sun straight into the lens costs you the shot. Then pack these:

• The camera, two charged batteries and an empty memory card
• A pole to mount the camera on
• A fully charged phone
• A card reader

Hold the camera at eye level

Mount the camera on a pole and raise it to eye level, the height a visitor sees from when standing. Keep the pole straight up and down, because a tilted pole tilts the whole photo.

A 360 camera sees everything, including you. Plant the pole, step back at least six feet in the same direction every time, and wait two seconds so the camera is still when the shutter fires. Let traffic pass, and keep your shadow out of the foreground. Magic Eraser can brush out a parked truck later, but it cannot repair a blown out sky or a blurred frame.

Walk the property and shoot every spot on the list

Work the checklist one spot at a time: take the photo, mark it captured, and the next spot opens on its own. If a locked door or a room in use stops you, flag the spot with Can't shoot this and a few words about why, so it turns red on your plan and somebody can fix it.

Before you leave, every row should read Captured or Flagged. The photos live on the camera's memory card, so never format that card until the tour is built.

Bring the photos in and check the pins

Building happens on a computer. On your dashboard, press New Tour, type the property's real public name and press Create tour.

In the editor, open Import Panos and choose the whole shoot in one batch. Photos with GPS place themselves on the map. Any photo without a location waits in the Needs placing strip, where Place on map drops it with one click and Estimate sets it between the photos shot either side of it. If a pin landed a little off, open Move Points and drag it into place.

Connect the route visitors will walk

A tour only walks the connections you draw, so it follows exactly the paths a person can really walk. Open Point Tags and place an arrow on the ground where a visitor's next step would be. The first arrow you place by hand teaches that photo its direction, and the rest go in with a click each. Outdoors, Auto-connect this point can propose the arrows for you to check, while indoors your own eye is the better judge.

Mark barriers like steps, a curb or a heavy door in Accessible Routing, and visitors get an Accessible option that routes around every one.

Once the arrows are in, finish the route with these, in this order:

• Detour Points, to bend the map lines onto the real walkways
• Keep-out Zones, for water, cliffs and private ground
• Route Check, to find any photo no path reaches

Name the places visitors will ask for

The name you give a photo is exactly what a visitor reads. Name the spots a guest would search for, like Office, Pool or Cabin 12, and switch Destination on for each one. A destination shows its name on the map and joins the Navigate list, so a visitor can pick it and be walked there step by step, with the turns spoken aloud.

Gather the photos inside one building into an area, like Club House. For anything with hours and a phone number, add a place in the Front Desk and tap the photo outside its front door, because that is where the tour walks a visitor. Finally, set the opening view on an entrance or a wide view that shows a visitor right away where they are.

Check readiness, then publish

Tour Readiness, at the top of the editor's left rail, scores the tour card by card. Fix the red cards first, because red means a visitor would hit a dead end. When every check passes, the pill reads Ready to share.

Publishing is one switch: in the Front Desk, open Share and turn on Anybody can open this tour. Leave it off while you build. Once it is on, open the link yourself, signed out, to see exactly what a stranger sees.

Put QR codes where visitors already stand

The Links and QR screen in the Front Desk gives you a link and a QR code for the whole tour, and one for any single place. A visitor who scans a place's code opens the tour already standing there, which suits the sign by a front door or the plaque at a trailhead.

Make a separate link for each spot where you post a code, and Analytics will show how many people came in through each one. Print every code big enough to scan from where a visitor will actually be standing.

Hand the whole job to us if you prefer

StrollPoint Direct shoots your property, builds the tour and keeps it current, so your team never touches a camera. It is priced by quote: reach Dustin Mishler, VP of Business Development, at 989-998-2469 or [email protected].

Common questions