VRto.me released

[Sbrusse]

Thanks for your feedback guys, appreciate it.

@ AlexP :
I understand that a grand would be a lot of money for every revision, but at the same, you are most certainly charging something to your client to get 40 panos "Final" every time. Can't that be added to the costs?

If you're not a "credit" based person, I guess you would be more a subscription based person. Would those 40 conversions happen with luck every month or would it be possible to have a revision happening on the 3th and another one on the 28th in this case you would need 80 conversion in a month. With 80 conversions, we can fairly imagine you would need to get to the unlimited subscription. What would you think is fair to get a unlimited subscription plan?
I'm just guessing you would have that for few months, but not every month in a year, so would you switch subscription plan every month depending on your needs?

@ VelvetElvis :
Rolling the subscription to the client would be tricky I conceive, that's why I though that a credit base would work better. Every time a client comes to you and ask for 360 panos, I would think you would just add the costs of vrto.me on top of your current price. That way, no surprises for you or the client, it just works and no worries about files getting deleted/disconnected or anything.

I understand your point for owning the source files and be able to host them anywhere you want, just wanted to point out two things :
1) you can embed as you please the url that is hosted from vrto.me into any web page, so for the end user, it wont be visible that it's hosted on vrto.me

@ AlexP & VelvetElvis :
2) If solution 1 is not good enough, you can always contact me directly and I'll be able to re-process the files and provide you the source files. This would be fully branded free and completely customizable to your needs. It wont be with vrto.me's fees as it will be a personalized job though.
That's what Peter Guthrie did for his 70 Vestry project, and we pushed the customization by having a map of the apartment and mapspots etc.

I would be glad if one of you could let me know what a fair price would be for either a subscription or a credit base, something where you would be happy to use the tool on a daily base.

Thanks
Stan

[sheehan_partners_nm]

I would suggest to consider making something as a stand alone tool. It would be helpful and sell well I think. If the price is reasonable, i wouldn't worry about piracy, people would just buy it in a bit!
Otherwise, you really should consider another option to create tours not hosted in your website. It is not about linking or embed url, very often architects have confidential work that just cant be around in the internet! Big studios don't care much about the price as would be worried about privacy, don't forget to consider that!

Regards!

[AlexP]

Thanks for your feedback guys, appreciate it.

@ AlexP :
I understand that a grand would be a lot of money for every revision, but at the same, you are most certainly charging something to your client to get 40 panos "Final" every time. Can't that be added to the costs?

Indeed, but an extra K every time is not insignificant in a world where clients are arguing over hundreds of quid.
Will have a think on the rest.

[Micha]

I would suggest to consider making something as a stand alone tool. It would be helpful and sell well I think. If the price is reasonable, i wouldn't worry about piracy, people would just buy it in a bit!
Otherwise, you really should consider another option to create tours not hosted in your website. It is not about linking or embed url, very often architects have confidential work that just cant be around in the internet! Big studios don't care much about the price as would be worried about privacy, don't forget to consider that!

Regards!

I second that. I create interior design panos and like to use a stereo output, but often the work is under NDA or the client like to show the panos on expositions, where the pano should run on an offline computer. UI and workflow of the tool is great and I would buy it as stand alone tool.

[sheehan_partners_nm]

Any update Stanley?
Our company is working with a big tech company client. In a free talk, I mentioned them this tool, they were interested but the first thing they said was: Can it run in our servers?
They wanted to host the website in their servers! Concerned about security, privacy and leaking info....

[Micha]

Back to the price. The truth with the current solution this tool is one of most expensive tools with the most limited functionality in my tool collection here. In the best case I would pay 20$ per hotspot. If over one year I create 10 panos with 5 hotspots I would pay 1000 $ each year. It's a really high price for a little software. A Photoshop abo is much cheaper. Also the over priced HDR light studio is cheaper. Vray is cheaper.

It looks like the vrto.me developer like to get a big peace from the cake. My impression - it's to big.

I'm sure, if the price would be a 1/10 much more people would use and feel good about it. For my example the cost would 100$ per year. This sound realistic for the functionality.

I like to pay one time for a tool and to use it like I want. I don't like the feeling some one is getting money from every click I do. A programmer should get his money, that's right, but he should not sit on my horse behind me all time.

[Sbrusse]

Hi everyone,


First of all, thanks all for your feedback, it has been really helpful and appreciated.


Since the release of VRto.me, although some users seems ok with the credit base model, some other (including some of you guys here) seems more concerned and ratter want to go with a subscription model instead.
That's why I decided to listen to the users and we will try to switch to a subscription model


It's still WIP for now, but the idea is that once your account is activated into a subscription, you wont have any watermark at all. You will be able to convert, view and share as much as you want, making it a day to day tool instead of only a publishing viewer.
The only limitation (yes because there has to be one unfortunately, otherwise some people might go berserk) is the amount of cubemaps that you can host on the platform at a given time.


As I said earlier, still wip so don't really take that as final estimations, but my thoughts where :

1. Free Pack : Free with unlimited conversion with watermarks
   Maximum cubemaps hosted at the same time : 5
   Priority for conversions : Very Low
   Any project is deleted after 30 days.
2. Starter Pack : 10€ /month with unlimited conversion
   Maximum cubemaps hosted at the same time : 10
   Priority for conversions : Low
3. Pro Pack : 30€ /month with unlimited conversion
   Maximum cubemaps hosted at the same time : 50
   Priority for conversions : Medium
4. Premium Pack : 50€ /month with unlimited conversion
   Maximum cubemaps hosted at the same time : 150
   Priority for conversions : High

If the user decide to un-subscribe, the projects will be kept for 6 months and will be deleted afterwards if the user hasn't re-subscribed in the mean time.
We are currently investigating the subscriptions with fastspring, if you have any other company to recommend for subscriptions, I'd be happy to look into them.
All this information hasn't been released yet, but I like the way you guys give your feedback so I wondered what you guys thought of this?

For users that needs to access the viewer from outside VRto.me, that is possible without any problem.
I've received loads of emails asking this and once the subscription is up and running, I'll update the site to include a white-label offer. This offer will give you access to all the source files so you are free to host it where ever you want, online/offline/intranet, whatever.
In the mean time you can just contact me by email for this to : sbrusse@gmail.com

Best,
Stan

[Micha]

Hi Stan,

that's a kind step from you, looks great. The high prices before was a motivation for other developer to work on an alternative. But now it looks like a good deal for a longer time, also if other pano creator software should be ready. Your tool allow to get a quick access to the VR world.

Maybe you could adjust the Free pack a little. You could set it at 10 cube maps. So, users could play at starter level and easy switch to the starter pack. The watermarks could be limit enough, it can not really be used for anything other than testing or ... preparing a first project. The free pack is the teaser.

Thank you,
Micha

[sheehan_partners_nm]

This is all great news Stan! Happy to participate. We'll be in touch for some work very soon.

[crazy homeless guy]

.....so this is basically KRPano and a web server?

[Sbrusse]

Hi,
VRto.me runs on KRPano as a backbone but KRPano does not support native cubemap conversions, and that's the whole point of the project, not going through the equirectangular image format to maximize pixel density and sharpness.
In addition to offer a hosting service, VRto.me offer different build in skins and hotspot to choose off to personalize your tour.
We are also offering custom skin customization for those who needs it.
It's completely web based so you don't need to code anything, and everything is saved live, so if you add a hotspot, it's saved and you can view or share it straight away.
It's basically way faster and easier to create a tour with VRto.me.
We have a list of features that we will implement so that the user will be able to use them at a click of a button.

Best,
Stan

[Morne]

When I made a project, can I move it off your server onto my own server?

[Sbrusse]

Yes you can, it will have to live outside VRto.me and be branded free so you will have to pay a little extra, contact me by email to do so

[Micha]

Hi Stan,

wish for the future - floor plane functionality: upload of a floor plan and define the camera places.

What do you think, is it possible?

[Sbrusse]

It's on the list of features yes,
I already did that for Peter Guthrie by hand but we will try to get that automated at some stage

We are working on getting multiple version of the same environment where you can switch from keeping the same view ATM