What does a "custom" Micrio project entail? ​

A question we get a lot is "We love this project, but we wonder how much was developed specifically for it, and how much of it is the coming from the default Micrio?"

This is totally understandable. In this article we will highlight a few popular Micrio projects and illustrate what was developed on top of the default Micrio functionality.

1. Rijksmuseum Masterpieces: The Gallery of Honour 360° tour ​

This award winning, minimal interface 360° virtual tour was made in March 2020 by a small team of designers and engineers of Dutch agencies Q42 and Fabrique, in only 6 days. Okay, counted in hours we made a little overtime. But everything was made from scratch, including even the 360° photography.

Other than custom CSS styling, which is trivial, these elements were created on top of the default Micrio image embed:

• The intro screen, showing a START button, and showing a full window intro video
• The hint you see when you land in the 360° environment
• The compass and forward-backward controls on the bottom right
• The clickable overview map accessible by the buitton the bottom left
• The language switch and social sharing buttons on the top right
• The video player controls when watching an audio tour of individual paintings
• (Later added: a small game to find certain keys based on hints-- this was added later, and is stand-alone)

All of these features are added using the Micrio Javascript API. Nothing custom was made inside Micrio to make any of this work.

2. Things That Talk ​

A new, academic platform for Dutch University of Leiden, built by Dutch agencies Q42 and Fabrique, Things That Talk uses Micrio for its tour and marker based zoomable storytelling.

Since its data is based on Linked Open Data, a whole new CMS environment was built to accommodate different user groups, and get the most out of the power hidden behind Linked Data. The Micrio markers and tours are imported from the Micrio dashboard and editor, into the CMS.

So for this project, the largest part was customly made, using Micrio's Javascript APIs to the fullest for displaying markers and tours from its own database.

3. The Night Watch Experience ​

This project, created in 2018 for Dutch Rijksmuseum and public broadcaster NTR, by Dutch agencies Q42 and Fabrique, features multiple in-depth themed tours about Rembrandt's most famous painting, The Night Watch. For this interactive documentary, all contents such as the markers, tours, voice-overs and audio were added in the standard Micrio dashboard environment.

On top of that, in the website itself, these features were custom tailored, using the Micrio Javascript API and custom design and styling:

• Custom made intro screen with background video and start button
• Marker visibility based on zoom levels, and difference between Theme markers and individual markers
• The vertical video player on the right side of the screen
• The highlighting of figures in video tours: this was done using a custom canvas2d overlay using a layered SVG file as source input
• Timed display of photo overlays while watching a video tour