FAQs

There are technologies in the market to reconstruct the 3D model of a physical place, with capture hardwares such as 3D scanners with Lidar lasers generating points clouds that are very accurate; or some new mobile capture applications for a more individual usage and small captured areas.
3D modeling applications and softwares are then used to build and display the 3D models of the captured place from the points cloud.
These processes (capture + 3D modelization) are quite long to execute and the tools can’t be used by everyone, they require 3D experts.

The TotalYmage software suite is unique. Its patented technology that allows 360° video edition with 3D positioned points of interest, has been developed in 2014-2015 and provides users with a quick 3D reconstruction process in real images and a very easy way to create, manage and share interactive content in these images.

The capture process is way quicker (about 50 times): walking through a facility with a 360° video camera, instead of using a laser scanner positioned every meter for 30 seconds. Or with a rover or drone on which the 360° video camera is installed.

A second difference is in the TotalYmage software itself, allowing all users to easily create their remote work environments in the images of the captured locations. Just a few clicks and they can share these interactive environments with their colleagues and partners.

Then TotalYmage is compatible with any existing software (CMMS, SCADA, BIM, LMS, workflows), being able to access information in real time and save their findings and activity.
Users can also upload 3D models of their machines and create an interactive navigation in the TotalYmage application, combining virtual and real images.

The TotalYmage software suite is primarily used by small, medium and bigger companies, but also by governmental agencies and independent structures offering services to their clients. It is available on Windows.

We do not currently sell TotalYmage subscriptions to individuals.
But we are working on our SaaS web application to be able to use it on any device through a web browser.
This will allow our clients to share weblinks to access the TotalYmage environments without downloading any content on a PC. Of course this will require a good connectivity for the users.
We’ll keep you informed of our progress !

You can use the TotalYmage application without 360° videos, but your experience would be limited to interactions in PDFs, photos, 360° photos.

If you want to create a full TotalYmage immersive and interactive experience, you need to capture a physical place with a 360° video camera.
You will be able to navigate in the continuous images of the 360° video and look around in any direction in the images, from your computer like if you were on-site !
And 360° video images are needed to create the points of interest in 3D directly in the 360 video, to attach interaction icons for your documents, training tutorials, sensors and web based productivity tools.

It’s really easy to capture 360° videos. You can use a helmet and stick the camera on its top a la GoPro.

It is best to select the capture mode at 30 frames per second and 4K resolution, even if your camera allows a 5.7K resolution; indeed :
– the 5.7K videos have a bigger size, longer to upload
– not all video players or web browsers can handle > 4K resolution
– the computer screens have usually a lesser resolution than the video, it is therefore useless to manage bigger size videos

The 5.7K resolution is nevertheless interesting for specific applications such as object and defect recognition, where image quality is very important.
Our professional grade algorithms allow the recognition and localization of objects in a 360° video, and create automatically the corresponding overlays in the images.
This process is especially used for automatized inspection.

You just need to walk in a smooth manner in your physical location, with the 360° video camera mounted on a helmet.
Keep looking straight, do not turn your head as the camera captures everything around you !
Turn around gently (1m radius minimum) when you need to turn left or right, so that the 360° video remains smooth.
The best your 360° video is captured the best will be your immersive experience, as you will be able to view smooth images when navigating in the video.

When you are finished capturing a 360° video, you need to retrieve the files from the camera. Depending on the camera brand and type there are several ways : plug the camera SD card to your computer, or connect directly to the camera from your computer or your phone.
Once you have the 360° video files you usually need to run the camera software to stitch and stabilize the images to create the .mp4 format 360° video. You may cut parts of the video directly in the camera software.

If you go through a photographer for the capture, the process to create the 360° video will be included in her/his service.

Then starts the TotalYmage experience !

You create a new 360° video in the TotalYmage back-office, by uploading it.
You create the 3D videos you want from the 360° video, defining what parts of the video are interesting for future immersion and interaction. This is called the vectorization process.

When you create your interactive environment in the TotalYmage application you can select a 3D video to create an interactive scene, and start adding links to specific content directly in the images that you captured.

If you have a 3D model in format .fbx, .rvt, .obj, .glb, .gltf, we have a tool called BIM to 360° video converter that allows you to record your own 360 video by navigating and following your own trajectory inside or around the 3D model.

This 360° video in ‘virtual images’ is managed exactly the same way as the 360° videos in real images captured with a 360° video camera:
You upload your 360° video in the TotalYmage back-office.
You create the 3D videos you want from the 360° video, defining what parts of the video are interesting for future navigation and interaction.

When you create your interactive environment in the TotalYmage application you can select a 3D video (created from the 3D model) to create an interactive scene, and start adding links to specific content directly in the virtual images.

It’s then really easy to link scenes of real and virtual images, through 3D positioned interactive points.
An example: documenting a construction project with both the construction site images and the target 3D model.

There are several ways for you to capture 360° videos.

You can buy one 360° video camera if you need to capture a lot of physical places for your professional occupation. You will be autonomous – anywhere anytime.

If you don’t need to capture a lot of 360° videos we recommend that you ask a photographer to perform the task. A professional is always interesting for high quality work and he will deliver a full service to you, including upgrading the video quality with colour and contrast adjustments as well as the computing of the 360° video with the camera software.

We can advise you if you look for photographers in your region.

We recommend buying or renting 360 video cameras such as:

• Insta360 One X3
  Very simple to use
  A very good image quality for a low-priced camera (400€)
  Waterproof
  About 150 g – can be carried everywhere, under a drone, on a helmet, on a selfie stick

• Insta360 One RS 1-inch 360
  The best image quality for a hand 360° video camera (under 1000€), especially in low light
  A little too large to capture very narrow facilities (need objects to be at a minimal distance of 50 cm)
  About 250 g

The SD card usually needs to be bought separately.
We recommend the SD card format : UHS-I V30 Speed Class, with a 256 Go storage.

Every 360° camera model has a specific internal format, either one video file per lens or a single file including the videos of each lens.

With the 360° camera comes a free software to stitch the 2 videos into a single 360 video file in .mp4 format.

The process is quite simple and explained in the 360° camera software documentation.
It requires to plug the camera or just the SD card to your computer, and import the video file(s), to launch the 360° camera software and select the 360° video files.

You will need to input a few parameters :
– the resolution: we recommend 3840 X 1920 as many computers don’t manage to run videos above 4K format
– the compression rate: we recommend 100 Mbits/sec
– the file name
– the file path

After a few minutes the 360° video is ready in .mp4 format.

You are able to upload any such 360° video on your Youtube channel, display it on any video viewer or upload in the TotalYmage backoffice.

Note that Insta360 is our preferred partner.
In the TotalYmage back-office you can directly upload the .insv files from the SD card into the TotalYmage backoffice.
This will create automatically the 360° video in .mp4 format in the TotalYmage backoffice.
You will be able to launch the vectorization process immediately after.

A 3D video is the TotalYmage proprietary format that is read by the TotalYmage application.
Each 3D video relates to the 3D model in real images of a location, that is displayed as an interactive scene in the TotalYmage application and in which content can be positioned on any point of the 3D model.

A 3D video is created from a 360° video under a proprietary (TotalYmage) patented process called vectorization, whereby the 360° images of the 360° video are analyzed by the TotalYmage algorithms to create the 3D model in real images of the location.

A 3D video is a directory of files:
– a 360° video in a specific format to be accessed smoothly in the TotalYmage application
– the files of the points of interest common to a range of 360° images, with their 3D coordinates (in the TotalYmage relative referential)
– configuration files for the 3D video

The pre-requisite to creating 3D videos is to have 360° videos already in the back-office account of your company.
Administrators of your company can upload 360° videos in the back-office account.

Only administrators of your company can create 3D Videos from 360° videos using the TotalYmage proprietary vectorization process.

Please check with your administrator if you need him to upgrade your rights to the administrator role.

When you are in the 360° video section of the back-office you can “vectorize” a 360 video.
This process creates a 3D video from the 360° video you selected.
Follow the instructions while in the vectorization process page.

Once a 3D video is created in the back-office, editor users of the TotalYmage application can create interactive scenes in their environment’s projects by selecting a 3D video from the 3D videos list in the back-office.
Note that only editors who were given access rights on a 3D video can access it and download it.

There is a big difference in time and cost between a point cloud reconstruction using scan lasers and a TotalYmage 360 in 3D immersion with a simple 360° video camera.

The table below compares the two solutions. This comparison will help you decide when to use 360° cameras and when to use laser scanning.

Laser scan for point cloud

Point clouds contain millions of points that are floating in the 3D space. You can think of a point cloud as a picture, but in 3D where every pixel is located at a different 3D location in space, and has a different color. Displaying all these points together in their respective locations, provides a 3D model that reflects reality.

Laser scanning creates point clouds by emitting a laser beam that bounces on an object and returns back to the scanner. The scanner can then estimate the distance between the scanner and the object that the beam bounced on by measuring the time it took the laser to return to the scanner. These types of laser scanners are called Time Of Flight (TOF) scanners. The main benefit of this method is that it is very accurate in small spaces. However, it has its limitations.

• Laser scanners are expensive ($16K to $250K)
• They must be operated by trained surveyors who understand survey concepts and theories
• It takes a significant amount of time, usually hours or even days to capture a job site
• It requires post processing of the captured data on very powerful and expensive computers in order to stitch separate scans into a unified point cloud

These characteristics of laser scanning makes it ideal for final documentation of the important parts of a project, or to verify flatness of surfaces. However, it also means that it requires a lot of resources to cover the equipment, training, and experienced labor, which makes it not ideal for weekly progress tracking.

The unique TotalYmage experience

On the contrary of laser scanning, TotalYmage utilizes 360° videos to generate a 3D model in real images of indoor and outdoor spaces. Using TotalYmage to generate the virtual clone of a physical place provides a different set of benefits and limitations.

• Affordable equipment (<$500 for a 360° video camera)
• No need for surveyors or trained engineers, the camera can be operated by anyone after watching a 15 min video
• It is very fast, in average, you can cover 150 m2 per minute of capture
• Post processing is quick

The user navigates in the captured images and can interact with the 3D-positioned content (see yellow points above).

You will be able to run the TotalYmage application on Windows OS devices. This means that any desktop, laptop, tablet using this operating system will be compatible for the use of TotalYmage.
No Android nor iOS device can run the TotalYmage application.
We’ll keep you informed when we’ll have our SaaS application ready!

For Windows devices we recommend minimal configurations so that your experience will be the best !

• Windows 7 or higher, MacOS 10.14 or higher
  • Windows 7 requires Lav Filters installation
• 8 Go RAM minimum, 16 Go or higher is recommended
• 256 Go SSD or higher
• Graphics card : Intel UHD 620 Graphics minimum for 30 Hz
• I5 4 cores minimum
• Screen resolution : 1K or higher

When using the device on site or in dangerous environments :

• Touch screen is recommended for ease of use
• Non detachable keyboard (reverse convertible) is recommended
• Rugged Windows tablet is recommended in difficult terrain
• Weight : 2kg maximum
• Battery : 8h minimum

Recommended Tablet PCs :

• HP Elite x2 1013 G3 i7, 16Go, 512 SSD is certified for inflammable conditions (cf MIL STD 810)
• HP Spectre x360 Convertible 14-ea0979nz

We are HP Inc partners and can provide you deals on HP computers purchase.

The TotalYmage application runs on Windows . But it doesn’t run on iOS or Android yet.

The mere reason for that is that mobile devices lack memory, computing and graphics capabilities that TotalYmage needs to work smoothly.
The connectivity in complex and distant locations may be weak, which requires the users to use offline applications such as TotalYmage.

But this doesn’t mean you can’t experience TotalYmage on a mobile or tablet.

It is possible to use solutions such as Remote desktop, VDI, DaaS, direct streaming, to launch the TotalYmage application from your mobile browser.
The application runs on a remote server and you interact with it through your mobile webbrowser.
No more compute nor upload on your mobile, you can experience as many TotalYmage environments as you want with no limitation.

Do not hesitate to ask us, we have partners in your region that can help you with your mobile needs.

The TotalYmage software can be downloaded on any Windows computer : your desktop, laptop, tablet PC.

You require a connection to your enterprise network to be able to :
– download your team’s work environments; alternatively the environments may already be stored on your computer
– authenticate yourself to access the TotalYmage application ; alternatively you could work offline with a specific authorization

The TotalYmage software suite can be accessed by different types of users, who were given specific roles :

• Super administrators : that’s us ! We make sure to onboard our clients and provide them with the best experience.
• Partners : they can create and manage their clients in the TotalYmage backoffice.
• Administrators : there is at least one administrator for each company, making sure that employees can access the TotalYmage environments with specific rights. Administrators also create and manage the library of 360° videos and 3D videos for the company.
• Editors : they have the ability to edit existing environments or create new ones, and publish them in the environments library of the company.
• Visitors : they can download and navigate the interactive environments created by their colleagues, and interact with all available content. But they can’t modify or create nor upload any environment.

When a user logs in to the TotalYmage application, and opens an environment, the application retrieves the role of the user.
The displayed buttons are by default the ones of a visitor role.
An editor user or an Administrator user who wants to start editing the environment, has to slide the edition mode button on the top bar of the TotalYmage application; all edition buttons are immediately displayed and the editor or administrator user can create, modify, publish an environment.
A visitor user is not able to slide the edition mode button.

Editors who created and published an environment can give access rights to their co-workers. Hence users could have limited access to certain environments to which their creators didn’t give any access right.

The latest version of the TotalYmage application is always available in your back-office account, along with the Terms and Conditions of the application.

Every 4 to 6 weeks a new version of the TotalYmage application is released.

If your back-office account is located on our servers, you can access your TotalYmage account by typing admin.totalymage.com/home on any browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari).
If your company has an On Premises set-up, you may ask your administrator about the way to access your back-office account or how to get the latest TotalYmage application version.

Upon login to your back-office account, you can see different versions for the TotalYmage application. There are 3 types:

• TotalYmage application V2.3.36 Dev: it is used for debug mode when installing for the first time or resolving an issue
• TotalYmage application V2.3.27 Portable: it’s a production version that any user can download and install anywhere (can be on the local hard drive, a distant drive, a USB key). It doesn’t require the formal Windows application setup. It allows a user to run the application even if it has been downloaded on a USB key for example, hence providing a solution where all TotalYmage environments data and the TotalYmage application can be run from a USB key, without local download on the PC.
• TotalYmage application V2.3.27 Exe: it uses the usual Windows application storage. It allows a normalized application version installation through an installer (.exe) that replaces automatically the previous version.

Please click on the corresponding ‘download’ button.

For the Dev and Portable you need to unzip the downloaded file and install the unzipped file wherever you want.

For the Exe please run the .exe and follow the instructions to install the TotalYmage application on your computer.

If you get a message that the file can’t be downloaded or is in quarantine, please check with your IT administrator, who may give extra authorization to install the application.

Please check frequently if there are new versions available on the backoffice.

For major releases we write an official release newsletter.

The release is also available as an article in the blog section.

You are currently on support.totalymage.com, the website to help you find answers to your questions and issues.

There is a documentation describing the functionalities of the back-office, the TotalYmage application and complementary applications ; tutorials are attached, as well as articles relating to professional use cases.

You also can find a section to deal with your more urgent issues. If you can’t find answers in our advices and documentation, there is a support request form to contact us. It is important that you describe accurately your issue so that the right support team can come back to you.

We offer our clients our generic Cloud platform to store, manage, process and secure their data.
There is no specificity to a client onboarding on the platform, all tools and services are generic.

Depending on the client’s set-up and constraints, other types of platform are possible.

The On Premises set-up is an option but it requires specific resources to install and maintain our software suite, especially in specific information systems.
We can provide this option through our network of integrators.
Please note that there is an integration cost, which is usually above $30’000.

A TotalYmage environment is a set of projects, dashboards and presentations built from visual elements (360° images, 2D pictures, maps, …), in/with which a user can interact.

An environment can be created by an editor user in the TotalYmage application. The user can then publish the environment in the back-office to make it available to other users.

Upon login in the TotalYmage application, a user who was given rights to access an environment will see it in the environments list.
Upon selecting it, the user will be able to download the environment and open it for his remote work operations.

The TotalYmage environments data are stored in the TotalYmage Cloud.
Administrator users can manage their data from the back-office admin.totalymage.com.

Users can access their available data upon login to the TotalYmage application: a user selects one environment of the environments list, and defines where the back-office based environment data should be downloaded so that he can access it directly, online or offline from his Windows device.
The data is generally downloaded locally on the user’s device but can also be downloaded on specific (to the user or the team) external drives or cloud services (cf Dropbox) or USB keys.

Once the download is finished, the user can open the environment whose data is immediately loaded in the device storage by the TotalYmage application.

A user with editor rights is able to modify a downloaded environment in the TotalYmage application. The environment data is updated at once and remains on the user’s choosen file location.
But the user can also publish the modified environment in the back-office to make it available to other users.

This means that the user can keep a “local” copy of the environments he downloaded, created or modified so that the application can access the data quickly.
And the user can share any of these environments at any time by publishing them to the company’s back-office account.

When a remote desktop set-up is in place, the data remains on the server; the user accesses the environments from a URL in a web browser and only sees the images streamed on the device. No data is transferred to the user’s device.

In the case of dedicated server per user, the environments data can be copied as a container image from the master server to the child servers. The data remains on the company’s servers and only the image of the environments is displayed on the user’s device.

The TotalYmage application generally runs on the user’s Windows device, using its storage, memory, compute and graphics capabilities.
The best user experience is reached when environments data is primarily downloaded on the device and stored locally so that the TotalYmage application can access it quickly.

But as mobile usage continues to increase quickly, there is a need for employees and service companies to use the TotalYmage application from their lighter and less powerful devices.

The solution is to use a remote desktop set-up where:

• the user clicks on the TotalYmage application URL
• this launches an instance of the TotalYmage application on a server
• every action from the user in the web page results in a compute on the server which sends back the new image to the device screen with a very small latency (20 ms)

This allows any user to run the TotalYmage application on their mobile device from a web link.

The pros are :

• All environments data remains on the server, the user can’t access or store it; security is reinforced, only the images are streamed to the user’s device.
• The TotalYmage experience becomes available on any device

The cons are :

• It comes with an extra cost for streaming, even though it is going down quickly; it depends on the server type, and the number of concurrent users, please call us to know more
• It is a valuable experience only when the network connection is excellent; otherwise the device will keep updating the images with a big lag

If the number of users is important and if they are highly skilled employees requiring a strong solution, there are individual servers remote solutions for $100 a month to run an instance of the TotalYmage application on a single instance server.

Environments data is copied from the source image on the new instances on a virtual machine before starting the application.
And the instance is deleted at the end of the user’s session.

The TotalYmage application allows you to share your environments.

Let’s consider two cases:
– you created your own environment from scratch in the TotalYmage application
– you downloaded an existing environment version from the back-office and modified it, adding or deleting content

In both cases you can upload your environment version to the TotalYmage backoffice.

At the end of the upload process, you’ll be able to give access rights on your environment version to any TotalYmage user, or a group of users or your whole company.

Important: note that if you give access rights on your environment version, this implicitly gives access rights on all 3D videos and medias that are linked to your environment version.
This implies a viral effect when one colleague downloaded all data and may reuse some for her own environment version.

The TotalYmage application allows you to share content between different environments.

For example let’s consider that you share an existing environment with two of your partners.
Each one is specialized in a field and will add specific information in the environment.
After their tasks done they share their environment back to you.

You will be able to:
– copy any of the environments projects to your own supervision environment, by copying a project to the clipboard and creating a project from pasting the clipboard in your target environment
– merge projects from the same environment, using the merge button in a project edition window