Frequently Asked Questions

Absolutely. Yes, anything can be replaced. A virtual tour is just pixels after all - which can be digitally edited. The art - no pun intended - is in getting the right scale of the replaced picture/art work, giving it an accurate three-dimensional appearance - with accurate shadows. We can so one step further, which is to create virtual galleries of any design - into which we can place any numner of works of art...

Regretfully not at the moment. However, we would definitely like this capability and are looking into providing this in a future release.

ivGallery stands for Interactive Virtual Gallery. It is a collaborative service of virtual photography and eCommerce developed jointly by ourselves and 3-8-tivity.

It is an as-real-as-we-could-make-it interactive virtual tour of a gallery or museum exhibition and is the culmination of the last 2-3 years R&D.

Yes. The equipment to photograph an object on all three axises is exceedingly expensive and we would not invest in it unless we had a very large and regular demand for it. However, we can sub-contract the work for one-offs.

Hotspots are graphical hyperlinks or buttons floating over the top of interactive panoramic images. They can be clicked on to go to a new location in the virtual tour. Therefore they are a means of navigation.

A 360˚ panoramic image is a cylindrical or spherical photograph. It is displayed on a computer screen as single virtual photograph, however, it is produced from a set of several extremely carefully positioned and shot photographs stitched-together with invisible seams (if done well). It is virtual in the sense that it does not exist as a tangible or physical object: it can only be seen on a computer screen with the use of specialist computer software.

A virtual tour gives you the experience of moving through a sequence of 360˚ panoramic images. Navigation is achieved by clicking on graphical hotspots.

"Skinning" is the graphic design or border surrounding (and sometimes partly overlaying) the virtual tour. Not all virtual tours have a skin: some are designed to slot into a normal web page without a border - just like a normal still image; and some are designed to fill the whole screen. If the user selects full-screen mode usually no border skinning is displayed (any skinning is restored when they come out of full-screen mode).

We use the term authentic to reflect the fact that we predominantly deal with reality - using media such as photography, video, and sound recordings. We strive to re-create real world experiences to enable businesses and professionals to present their real world premises or produce in the best possible way and predominantly on the internet. To that end we create an interactive multi-media experience that can be shared with an unlimited number of people around the globe, 24 x 7 x 365.

It is the amount of space available on a computer screen for an application to display your content. As web designers and developers, what is most relevant for us is the the amount of space available within a web browser window - like Safari, Firefox, or Internet Explorer. This is the area under our control. This is the physical area web pages are displayed in. It excludes the browser scroll bars, address bars, status bar, menus, etc.