History of 360° Virtual Tour

Do you want to go back in time?

Even if it is a technology that may seem quite recent, the 360° virtual tour has a rather unknown history, but exciting for as long as it is interested. Today, you are told more about the origins of virtual tours.

We find a first philosophical and conceptual idea of the virtual visits to Plato in – 347 BC with the myth of the Cavern. But it was in 1787 that we arrived at a first performance with Robert Barker who made the first 360° panoramic painting in Edinburgh. At that time, panoramic paintings were often used to represent famous battles or historical events.

Then the stereoscope arrived, it was an optical instrument invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838, allowing to visualize three-dimensional images. It consists of two eyepieces, one for each eye, mounted on a frame. The user looks through the eyepieces and sees two slightly different images of the same scene. The brain then combines these two images into a single three-dimensional image. This is the beginning of the 3D image!

In 1877, we discovered the first 360° photo panorama thanks to Eadweard Muybridge in San Francisco. Inventor of the time-lapse, he made several panoramic photographs of San Francisco using his creation, the 360° camera, before assembling them to create a complete view of the city.

Then, with the progress of cameras and video, it was in 1990 that the virtual tour in .java then with Apple's Quicktime VR. Quicktime software VR will democratize this tool by creating visits virtual interactive panoramic in real time, then today we find more and more equipment and software to create interactive photography in particular the Matterport technology we use at easyVirtual.tours !

The term virtual tour as we know it is less than 20 years old. Virtual tours were initially for the real estate sector and for museums. The technology ceased to evolve and Google introduced Google Street View in 2007.

Today, virtual tours offer high quality images and allow total immersion thanks to possible features. It is a real immersive experience that visitors can experience. Today they become the norm when it comes to giving an overview of a property or a business and are a real digital marketing tool. Whether they are owners seeking to seduce potential buyers or commercial companies wishing to present their goods and services, there is no shortage of people who benefit from this marketing innovation.

You can now see the evolution of the quality of virtual tours by visiting highlights in History from your sofa directly on our site!