Google Expeditions has enabled students (and even non-students) to go on virtual reality tours from the comfort of their own classrooms or couches. They are able to go to places like the Machu Picchu, Antartica, the Burj Khalifa, and other places without having to spend anything. One of the feedbacks from users is that it would be nice if they can create their own VR tours as well. So now they are introducing the Tour Creator program so anyone can make their own and upload it to Poly, the Google library of VR content.
Basically, what Tour Creator does is let you put together your very own VR tour by using images from Google Street View or shooting their own 360 photos. While of course you would have to learn a bit about virtual reality and putting things together, the learning curve isn’t that steep. You will be able to produce “professional-level VR content” and make it available for other people to view if they would like a virtual tour of their hometown or a special building or structure.
After you’ve finished creating the VR tour, you will be able to upload it to Poly and people will be able to watch it by opening the link in their browser and using Google Cardboard to view it in VR. Since this is intended to be for school projects as well, you can embed it on the school website so others can view it. Eventually, Google will allow you to import these tours into the Expeditions app as well.
You can go to g.co/tourcreator to start building your very own virtual tour, maybe of your neighborhood or your community. You can share it using the hashtag #LoveWhereYouLive.
SOURCE: Google
