New Feature: Automatically Connect Your Panoramas (Upgrade)

This is without a doubt one of the most powerful and anticipated features in this release. With the new “Connect Panoramas” button, VT PRO analyzes your images using an advanced visual-recognition system and automatically creates all the necessary connections between the selected panoramas.

All you need to do is select multiple panoramas from the Panoramas → List tab, click the button, and let VT PRO do the work. In just a few seconds (or minutes, if you’re working with a large set), the software compares each image, calculates scale, estimates the distance between shots, and generates all the corresponding hotspots with impressive accuracy and no manual intervention.

This feature is especially useful for large projects—construction sites, museums, urban walkthroughs, industrial facilities or outdoor environments with dozens or even hundreds of panoramas—where manually building all the connections would be slow, repetitive, and extremely time-consuming. With this tool, you can save hours or even days of work while maintaining perfect consistency across all tour connections.

You can also define two additional parameters: Distance to Floor and Distance Between Panoramas. With just these two optional values, VT PRO automatically adjusts the position and height of all hotspots, placing them with high precision inside each panorama.

In short, this feature is designed for creators who want to work faster, cleaner, and with far less effort, allowing VT PRO to take care of the most tedious part of the process while you focus on the final result.

For more information on this feature, you can find a more detailed explanation in our dedicated blog post.

Note: To get the best results, the tool requires at least 5 panoramas that are close to each other and share clear visual overlap. Since this is an automated computer-vision process, results can vary depending on the material — meaning not all expected connections may be created, and some may need manual adjustment. It’s a powerful time-saver, but not a guaranteed perfect solution in every situation.

Support for SOG Files in Gaussian Splatting Models (Upgrade)

VT PRO now supports importing the SOG (Serialized Optimized Gaussians) format — a modern file type created specifically for Gaussian Splatting workflows. Thanks to its compact and structured design, SOG allows VT PRO to load models much faster and with greater efficiency than traditional formats like PLY.

Because a SOG file contains all key Gaussian attributes in an optimized binary layout, VT PRO can read and interpret the data more smoothly, resulting in noticeably improved performance when handling large or complex GS scenes. This makes imports significantly quicker and the overall workflow far more responsive.

With this new compatibility, integrating Gaussian Splatting models into VT PRO becomes easier, faster and more fluid, helping you iterate more comfortably without the slowdowns associated with heavier or less specialized formats.

Improved Gaussian Splatting Conversion Performance

Gaussian Splatting model conversion is now faster when Spherical Harmonics compression is enabled.
Spherical Harmonics are a mathematical technique used to efficiently represent complex lighting and color variations in 3D scenes. When applied to Gaussian Splatting, they allow the system to store this information in a more compact and optimized way, reducing the amount of data that needs to be processed.

Thanks to this optimization, conversion times are noticeably shorter and overall workflow performance is significantly improved.

Higher Quality in Spherical Harmonics Compression

In addition to the performance boost, we’ve also improved the quality of Spherical Harmonics compression for Gaussian Splatting models, resulting in more accurate output and better visual representation.

New “Distance to Floor” value for more accurate hotspot placement

A new “Distance to Floor” setting has been added to the Panorama Settings panel.
This value represents the height at which the panoramas were captured and is applied to all selected images when using the “Connect Panoramas” feature.
Together with the distance between two panoramas, it enables VT PRO to calculate hotspot height and position with far greater accuracy.

This option is also useful when connecting panoramas to a 3D model, as it helps define the correct elevation of the hotspots during the “Connect Panoramas to a 3D Model” process.

New “Move Camera to this View” Option in the 3D Model Hotspot Action

A new “Move Camera to this View” option has been added to the Hotspot action (only for 3D Model hotspots) allowing you to animate the camera as it moves toward the hotspot’s defined view.

When this option is enabled, triggering a hotspot will not only execute its assigned actions, but also animate the camera smoothly from its current position to the hotspot’s recorded viewpoint. This creates a focused, guided transition that highlights exactly where the hotspot was placed — without requiring you to create a specific camera view or additional actions.

Previously, this animated transition was mandatory for this action. Now you can enable or disable it depending on the needs of your project and the navigation style you want for your experience.

New “On Start” Event for 3D Model Sequences

You can now trigger actions in a 3D model sequence the moment playback begins, thanks to the new “On Start” event. This gives you much greater control over how sequences are presented, allowing you to start the tour with specific changes already applied — such as showing or hiding skin elements or model hotspots, activating certain model animations, or executing any other action you want to launch automatically at the beginning.

Improved video conversion performance on Apple Silicon devices

Video conversion performance on Apple Silicon machines has been significantly improved.
Your videos now process more quickly and efficiently, speeding up your workflow on modern Mac devices.

Fonts now exported in WOFF2 format

Fonts used in your tours are now exported in the optimized WOFF2 format.
This reduces file size, improves loading times and delivers better performance across web and mobile devices.

New “Check Updates” Option in Edit / Preferences

We’ve added a new “Check Updates” option inside Edit → Preferences. This toggle lets you enable or disable automatic update checks and the update notification popup. When it’s enabled, VT PRO will check for new versions and show a popup if an update is available. When it’s disabled, no update checks are performed and no update popup will appear.

Some other added features are:

• Fixed Visibility Issue with Arrows in the Popup Album Action.
• Dragging and dropping a panorama into the hotspot sub-tab (including the Create Return option) now automatically copies the tags from the original hotspot to the return hotspot.
• Actions in the "Trigger Upon Target" action can now be rearranged by drag & drop for easier organization.
• Added a "Use Legacy File Dialog" option in the Options / Preferences menu on Windows.
  IMPORTANT: Users who have experienced crashes after a file selection should enable this option to prevent them. There is an issue with a recent Windows patch where some users experience a complete application crash and cannot save their projects. Using the legacy file dialog resolves this issue for now.
• Added a "Use Old 3DVista APK" option in the "3DVista App" publication. This allows you to publish the app using the previous version of the APK.
• Added support for SOGS compression in ZIP format as input for Gaussian Splatting. Since it requires multiple files, they needs to be bundled into a single ZIP.
• Added Tab key support to navigate through the question card in E-Learning.
• Made the spot animation action in a 3D model cancelable by user interaction (reported by Deluva).
• Limited the 360 stereoscopic video to 4320×4320 in the 3DVista App for Quest 2/3 due to a firmware issue in Meta devices starting from version 76.

Want to try it?

This is an update available to all 3DVista users, although some of the features will require a valid Upgrade plan (what's that?).

Not a 3DVista user yet? Try our free 30-day trial (no credit card required) of the desktop software VT PRO to design and create your own virtual tours. You don't have any 360º content to work with yet? No problem. Just download our demo tours and use them in the software to play around with.