In my REIT class I’m always saying how this is so easy and very cheap. Here’s how to do it;

Place your digital camera in the middle of the room/scene on a tripod at about eye level. Lock the tripod. Set the camera for panorama (if it has that mode) and zoom out as far as you can go.

Take a photo.

Turn (pan) the camera until the next image just overlaps the last one. Keep the level the same, just turn horizontally, not up or down. Stay behind the camera. (sorry, obvious I know)

Take another photo.

Continue this until you are back to your starting point. Usually about 6-10 shots depending on your camera. Each one has to overlap the last one by a little bit.

You need the complete 360 degrees, all at the same horizontal level.

Take these photos  into your computer and arrange them in order.

Get Realviz Stitcher Express. There is a free trial version. It’s for Windows or Mac. US$59 to buy it.

Import the photos in order into Stitcher.

Select Auto-stitch. This stitches the images together to form a cylinder.

Select auto-align. This lines up the images.

Select equalize images. This fixes the colour.

Select Render and pick cylindrical Quicktime VR.

Press Ok. This makes a Quicktime VR movie file.

Paste that movie onto your web page.

Done!

Your viewers will need the Quicktime plug-in. On the Mac, it’s built in, Windows users will get a pop-up helping them install it, if they don’t already have it.

You only need the free player, not the Pro version.

One tip, if you are installing Quicktime - the download page defaults to installing iTunes too. It’s free but takes a while to download. You can untick iTunes if you don’t want it. You only need Quicktime to play virtual tours.

See my sample.

Realviz comes with a great tutorial and a getting started guide. It was actually easy. It’ll let you make heaps of other views; really long panoramas, full spherical views, etc etc. I just did the one test.