TourMaster

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Design - Features - Showcase - Download

TourMaster adopts a smart-design approach in tour authoring. Sophisticated tours are produced with minimal efforts, yet a tour can be customized to heart's delight.

1. Express two-button tour authoring

In its simplest a tour is done with two major button clicks. Load vista images and Publish, with all setups from stored custom configuration. A custom tour is made in minutes.

2. Full-featured tour authoring

There are four major authoring UI windows: main window, Image Browser, Map Editor and Hotspot Editor.

TourMaster main window UI: action components for Authoring Steps below

Tour Map Editor UI

Hotspot Editor UI: dynamic mode - to edit dynamic hotpots

Authoring Steps

Weaving a full-featured tour from images, sound and text involves the following steps:

1. Load: Bring vista images into PhotoBin. Orient them properly. Sequence them in order. Decide a vista's type (vertical vs. upright pano vista; photo vs. slide vista). Edit vista labels. Shift a vista's initial view box. Rotate a photo-vista. Adjust brightness/contrast.

2. Title: Tour title shows in browser head bar and optionally in tour page.

3. Layout: Adjust sizes/locations/colors/fonts of tour components: viewer, control bar, VistaBench and tour map. Save to Configuration for re-use.

4. Tour Movie: A tour has two modes: movie mode and self-tour mode. Specify initial view area sizes, pano spin speed, or photo/slide zoom-out time.

5. Tour Map: In TourMap Editor, to position the compass of each vista, and to orient the compass beam to match the vista's initial view.

6. Vista Legend: Text story of a vista, shown in viewer when mouse hovers over its thumbnail.

7. Sound: Tour sound: background sound, typically music. Vista sound: sound when showing a vista, mostly vista narration.

8. Hotspots: In Hotspot editor, to edit vista scene point of interest with associated text, mouse-over image or mouse-click action (go to another vista, or show a URL in another browser window).

9. Project: One should always save a tour's authoring to a tour project file, so that later load the project file to continue its tour making.

10. Publish: A tour page is produced with its associated tour media files. A tour can also be embedded in another web page. To finish, the tour files are uploaded to web server to show the world.

For more detailed instructions on using TourMaster, please read TourMaster manual in the installation.