The popularity of virtual reality (VR) is rising amongst businesses and retailers, as it offers a new way to engage with clients, customers and other businesses. Metareal Inc are trying to open up the technology to more people with the announcement that its Metareal Stage platform will be made available to the public.
Metareal Stage has been created to offer an easy-to-use, web-based tool for authoring 3D virtual tours without the need for professional-grade scanning technology, as the required scans can be translated from standard photographic equipment.
The aim is to produce 3D models that can be easily viewed in any web browser or mobile device, or explored in VR. Metareal Stage lets photographers use existing equipment to create tours, floorplans and models without needing authorising tools or scanning equipment.
“We’re incredibly proud to make this technology publicly available,” said Gareth Morgan, CEO and co-founder of Metareal. “To have built this tool in so short a time is an amazing achievement by the team. At last, using just their existing equipment, real-estate and virtual tour photographers can quickly and easily create extremely high-quality 3D virtual tours.”
Metareal Stage is already a production-ready virtual tour solution, even in beta”, said Alexandre Jean Claude, CTO and co-founder of Metareal. “and this represents the first step in our technology roadmap-over the next year we’ll be adding unique differentiated features such as full freedom of movement, advanced dynamic HDR, reconstruction automation and support for a wider variety of target platforms.”
The platform is said to use much less data that scanner-based VR solutions, and allows for faster opening of files, especially when used on mobile devices. The beta version is free to use, and the company is planning on offering competitive subscription options when the platform is ready for full release.
Further information is available on the Metareal website. As usual, VRFocus will bring you further news on Metareal and other VR tools and services as it becomes available.
via Mint VR