How to make a 360 virtual tour with just your phone
/ 5 min read
For years, a virtual tour meant buying a 360 camera, learning stitching software and paying for hosting. That stopped a lot of small businesses, agents and photographers from trying at all. A modern phone camera is good enough to capture panoramas that hold up in a tour, as long as the photos are taken in the right way and stitched properly.
What you need
- A smartphone with a working gyroscope (almost every phone from the last few years)
- An Astra3D account with stitching credits (included in Starter and Pro)
- A space with steady lighting and nobody walking through it
Step 1: plan your route
Walk the space once without capturing. Decide where a visitor should start, usually the entrance, and which rooms they should reach next. Pick one spot per small room and two for large or L-shaped rooms. Write the order down if the space is big. A clear route makes the finished tour feel like a walk rather than a slideshow.
Step 2: capture each spot
Open AstraPano from your dashboard on your phone and create a collection for the property. Stand on your first spot and follow the on-screen targets. The trick is to rotate around the phone rather than around your own body, keeping the lens in roughly the same place in the air. Moving the phone sideways is the most common cause of seams.
Each capture takes a set of photos covering the whole sphere. When the turn is complete, the photos upload and are stitched in the cloud. You do not have to wait. Walk to the next spot and start again.
Step 3: check the panoramas
Stitched panoramas appear in the collection as they finish. Look at doorways, window frames and furniture edges. If something looks doubled, recapture that spot. A failed stitch returns the credit, and a recapture costs one more credit, so it is worth getting the first attempt right by going slowly.
Step 4: turn the collection into a tour
Create a tour from the collection and every panorama becomes a scene, in full quality. Set the starting direction for each scene, then add navigation hotspots on the doorways so visitors can walk from room to room. Add information hotspots for anything worth explaining, and your logo on the floor to cover where you stood.
Step 5: publish and share
Publishing gives you a link and an embed code. Send the link on WhatsApp, add it to listings, or embed it on your website. On the Pro plan you can connect your own subdomain and remove our branding.
When to upgrade to a 360 camera
A phone suits most apartments, shops and offices. If you start capturing dozens of spots a day, or busy public places where people keep walking into frame, a one-shot 360 camera saves time. Astra3D accepts both in the same tour, so you can mix them.