How long it takes, from capture day to handover
Three to five working days from the capture day to the files landing with you, and never less than three. The number of photographs is not what moves that: a 40-station seafront hotel was delivered in four working days, and a 48-station university building took two weeks. Eight more photographs, two and a half times as long from capture to handover — because that second tour carries 81 information popups and two floor plans that track your position as you move. If you want a fast handover, the thing to keep short is the layer built on top of the capture, not the capture.
The published turnaround
Three to five working days for most tours, capture day to handover. Never less than three, because stitching, colour and exposure correction and the build itself take the time they take and we would rather publish a floor than a best case. You get the estimate with the quote, alongside the station count and the fixed price, and it is on the pricing page as well so nobody has to ask.
Two real jobs, at opposite ends
| The job | A seafront hotel | A university building |
|---|---|---|
| 360° photographs | 40 | 48 |
| Hotspots in the finished tour | 231 | 271 |
| Information popups | None | 81 |
| Tracked floor plans | None | 2 |
| Capture day to handover | Four working days | Two weeks |
The counts came out of the delivered tour files. The elapsed times are our own record of the two jobs.
Both tours are live. The hotel is Hotel Nertili in Sarandë and the university building is the Canadian Institute of Technology in Tirana, and you can open either and see what the difference bought. On the hotel, the job was to let a guest stand in the exact room they were being offered. On the university building, the job was to let a prospective student read what each laboratory is for while standing in it — which is 81 pieces of written content, positioned, styled and checked, on top of a capture that took no longer than the hotel’s.
What moves the date
| What you ask for | Effect on the date |
|---|---|
| More 360° photographs | Mostly capture time, and it is the cheapest thing to add in days |
| Information popups | The largest single driver. Each one is content that has to exist, be placed and be checked |
| Tracked floor plans | Every panorama has to be pinned to its position on the plan before it can track you |
| A second language | The whole information layer rebuilt over the same capture |
| Audio or video built into the tour | Each file is placed and then checked on desktop, on a phone and in a headset browser |
| Words that do not exist yet | If nobody has written the popup text, the build waits for it. This is the most common delay of all |
What you can do to keep it short
Decide the station count before the visit, not during it
You get the count in the quote. If it changes on the day because a floor was locked or a room is being repainted, the date changes with it.
Name one person who approves the tour
One reviewer with the authority to say yes. Reviews by committee are the single easiest way to turn four days into three weeks, and it has nothing to do with us.
Write the words in advance, or ask us to
If your tour carries information popups, that text is content. Either it exists before the build closes or the build waits. Writing it is quoted separately rather than sitting on the rate card, because the scope is whatever your building needs said about it.
Send the logos, fonts and any plans up front
They go into the folder you are handed. Chasing a logo file at the end of a build is a day nobody planned for.
The longer treatment of turnaround, with more of the archive behind it, is three to five working days — except the one that took two weeks. If your part of the preparation is what you want to get right, the checklist to hand your own staff is prepare your space for a capture day. Otherwise, send the address and we will put a date on it.
Questions people ask
- How long does it take from the capture day?
- Three to five working days for most tours, and never less than three. Larger or feature-heavy builds take longer, and you get the estimate with the quote rather than after the shoot. The two extremes in our own archive are four working days for a 40-station hotel and two weeks for a 48-station university building with 81 information popups and two tracked floor plans.
- Can you do it faster than three days?
- No. Stitching, colour and exposure correction and the build take that time, and we publish the floor rather than a best case we would then miss. What we can do is start sooner: the capture day is usually the thing to bring forward, not the build.
- What delays a build most often?
- Content and approvals. Popup text that has not been written, a room that was locked on the day, a logo file nobody can find, or a review with four people in it. None of those is capture or build time, and all of them are inside your control rather than ours.
- How long does the capture day itself take?
- It depends on the station count, and you will have that number before we arrive. Most spaces stay open while we work — we shoot around you rather than closing the building — which is why a shop was captured at night while it was trading and hotels are shot around occupancy.
