Google IO 2018: Tour Creator is a new tool by Google that lets your make your own VR stories

Google announced a new tool for educational purposes, on day 2 of the **ongoing I/O 2018.** [caption id=“attachment_4456757” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Google IO 2018[/caption] Aimed at the educational market, Tour Creator is a tool that is meant to allow students or schools, or anybody else to create their own VR stories. Up till now, with VR field trips, you could use Google Cardboard and take magic trips but of stories or videos created by someone else. That expanded to selfie stick-enabled AR experiences last year. However, with Tour Creator, you can now make 360-degree photos into a VR-ready clickable guide with notes and voice-overs, yourself. Essentially, you can produce professional-level VR content without a steep learning curve. The tool is web-based, so you need a desktop PC browser to use it. You can create the tour experiences and publish them to Google’s 3D content portal, Poly.

You can add a lot of effects to your stories. The 360-degree photos can be annotated, you can create clickable areas, among other things. If there aren’t any 360-degree photos, you can also use Google Street View images. The final projects can be viewed on a Google Daydream or Cardboard VR headset, or on any phone, tablet or web browser, scrolling around in a “magic window” mode. These projects can also be embedded to school’s website for more people to view it. Google also says that later this year, it will be adding the ability to import these tours into the Expeditions application.