Developing a virtual tour of a community pharmacy for use in education

Abstract: This paper reports on the development of a virtual tour of a community pharmacy. The interactive walkthrough was designed to be used as an adjunct to placement training for Pharmacy students. This paper reports on the limitations and issues associated with developing a virtual tour using currently available hardware such as the GigaPan Pro and software such as the GigaPan Stitch and krpano. These tools are relatively available and claim to allow for automatic generation of virtual tours along with the addition of interactive element such as text and sounds. We found that in general producing a standard walkthrough was straightforward. We also found that with patience and some experimentation high quality outcomes could be achieved as long as only simple navigation was required. However, adding even simple interactive elements such as sound objects, pop up text and modified hotspots for more natural zooming between locations added significantly to the required IT skill set. We conclude that programming knowledge and subtle interface design skills, consistent with a trained IT professional are required if anything beyond a very basic walkthrough is to be produced.