Import a tour from other software

The short version

Import a tour brings a tour you made in other software into your account as a new draft tour: its scenes in order with their names, where each one opens, the links between them and its info hotspots, as far as Panoramr can read them. It also brings back a Panoramr archive, a .panoramr file. The Download pane offers that file only to Panoramr's own team for now, so you have one only if our team gave it to you. You choose the tour's folder, a zip of it or the archive on your computer; Panoramr shows what it found and what will not come across before anything is sent, and the tour comes in as a draft you finish in the editor.

What you need

• A tour you made yourself, or whose photos and content you have the rights to. Before an import starts you tick a box to confirm it, and that importing it is allowed under the licence of the software it was made with.
• The tour's own files, on your computer: the folder its software exported, or a zip of that folder. Panoramr reads only the tour's data and its pictures. It never opens a link to a tour hosted elsewhere, and never runs, copies or keeps the other software's player, skin, plugins or scripts.
• Import switched on for your account. The Import a tour button is shown only while Panoramr's team lets your account import, and a software card only while its kind of tour is switched on. A free-trial guest account cannot import.
• A tour that is not protected. A tour its software encrypted or protected, or packed as a program, cannot be read: export it again without protection.
• Room in your plan for the scenes, as for any upload (Plans and limits).
• Chrome or Firefox on a computer. The pictures of a folder or zip are made into tiles in your browser, as an upload's are.

Import a tour

1. Open Import a tour: it is beside Create tour at the top of My Tours, and Create Tour has a card beside Photos on your phone?, A tour made in other software?, with Import a tour.
2. Under Where is your tour from?, click the card for the software the tour was made with. Each card says what it reads. The cards are the kinds of tour you can import at the moment; a card marked Beta reads a kind of tour that has not yet been proven on a real export from that software, so check the result with care.
3. Click Choose the folder and choose the tour's folder, or Choose a zip for a zip of it. If the folder holds more than one tour, click the one to import.
4. Read what was found: how many scenes, links, hotspots and floor plans, then Worth a look for anything to check and Not imported for everything that will not come across, each with the reason, in groups with their counts: files the tour names that are not in its folder (each named), media Panoramr cannot play, hotspots, rooms and maps, and the other software's own parts and settings. The scenes are listed with their size and where they open. Change the name of the new tour if you like.
5. Tick the box that confirms you made the tour or have the rights to it, then click the import button, which says how many scenes it brings.
6. Keep the tab open while the bar fills: each scene is made into tiles and sent in turn, then any Flash video is converted, then the pictures and documents its hotspots show, then the links and hotspots.
7. Click Open your tour. It is a draft, so nobody sees it until you publish it.

If the import stops, the scenes already sent are in the draft tour: Try again carries on from where it stopped.

Bring back a Panoramr archive

A .panoramr file (only Panoramr's team can make one for now) comes back as a new tour with its scenes, hotspots, floor plans and design.

1. On Import a tour, click the Panoramr archive card, then Choose a .panoramr file.
2. Change the name of the new tour if you like, tick the box and click Import the archive.
3. Click Open your tour. A large archive may be made into a tour in the background: the page then says so, and the tour appears in My Tours as a draft when it is ready, usually within a few minutes.

The page says how large an archive it takes. An archive too big for one request is read in your browser and sent in pieces: keep the tab open until it is done, because the page warns before it is closed. If it stops, Try again starts the archive again as a new draft tour.

Your imports and the report

Every import you start is kept as a report. The Import a tour page lists your five newest under Your imports, each with its software, its result and its date, and the last step of an import has Keep this report. A report is a page at pro.panoramr.com/import/<number> that only you and our team can open. It shows The tour it made (or that the tour is in the Trash or gone), how and when the import ran, whether it finished or failed and why, What came across as counts, and What did not come across in the same groups as the review step. An import that was started and never ended, for example because the page was closed, is marked abandoned two days later; its report stays.

For a tour from VTfusion the report also has Send the old tour's visitors here. You type where the old tour was, and the page gives you a redirect.html to put in place of the old index.html, a redirects.csv listing every old room address with its new one, and a rule for nginx and one for Apache. The new addresses work once the tour is published. This was built and tested on made-up tours; it has not been tried on a real VTfusion site.

What comes across

• The scenes, in order, with their names and descriptions, and the view each one opens at.
• Links between scenes, with the view they arrive at when the other software kept one.
• Info hotspots with their title and words, and links to web pages.
• From some software, also floor plans with their pins, the radar's heading, and pictures, videos, sounds and documents for the Info & Media Panel.
• From some software, also pictures and videos laid flat on a wall, as Surface Media where they were. A picture that opened large in the old tour still does when it is clicked: in the media window with its name, words and documents, or as a pop-out (when a picture is clicked). Anything else clicking one did (go to another scene, open a web page) is a hotspot under it.
• Whether the tour turns by itself, and how it changes from scene to scene, when Panoramr has the same setting. Both are under Design afterwards.

Not the other software's player, menus, skin, buttons, plugins, scripts or sound settings, nor its other settings: your tour uses Panoramr's player, and its look comes from Design. Hotspots that ran actions of the other software are listed under Not imported, so you can add them again in the editor. A video in Flash's old FLV format, which browsers cannot play, is converted to MP4 while the tour is imported (the page says how many before you start), and the MP4 goes into your library. A very long one, or one Panoramr cannot convert, is listed when the import ends: convert it to MP4 yourself and add it in the editor, or put the MP4 beside the FLV with the same name and import again.

When something is wrong

• No … tour was found there. The folder or zip is not the kind of tour the card reads. Check the card, and choose the folder the software exported, not its project file.
• The tour is protected or encrypted. Panoramr never decrypts a tour. Export it again from its software without protection.
• A scene is missing, or a hotspot points the wrong way. Check Not imported and Worth a look on the page, then fix the scene in the editor. Imports read other software as well as they can, but they are not made or checked by that software's makers.

Panoramr is not affiliated with or endorsed by the makers of the software named on the page; the names are trademarks of their owners.