Compared
How an AI-guided 3D tour compares
Four ways to put a place online, and four ways to add AI to a visit, side by side. field.tours is one column in each table; the others are kinds of product, each good at something.
Places online
How is a 3D tour different from a 360° tour or a video?
| Question | 360° photo tour | Video walkthrough | 3D model viewer | AI-guided 3D tour (field.tours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you explore | Photos taken from fixed points | A film made in advance | A 3D model you turn by hand | A 3D scan you move through, streamed into the browser |
| Where you can go | Between the photo points | Where the camera went | Anywhere, by hand | Anywhere, by hand or by asking |
| How things are explained | Hotspots with text | A narrator | Labels, if there are any | A guide that answers and lights up the thing itself |
| Asking questions | Not built in; some add a chat window | Not possible | Not built in | Typed or spoken, answered from the place's own sources |
| Where it runs | Browser, often VR | Any screen | Browser | Browser, touch screen and VR, from one build |
AI in a visit
How is an AI guide inside a 3D scan different from other AI guides?
| Question | Chat on the website | AI audio guide on the visitor's phone | AI character built for a game engine | AI agent inside a 3D scan (field.tours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | A chat window on a web page | An app or a web page on the visitor's phone | A game or a real-time 3D app | Inside a 3D scan of the place: in a browser, on a touch screen or in VR |
| Knows what you are looking at | No | From where you stand, or a photo you take | Within its own game scene | Checks which named parts of the place are on your screen |
| Can show you things | As text and links | As text, images or audio on the phone | In its game scene | Moves the camera, points at and lights up the real model |
| Where answers come from | Whatever it was given | Usually the museum's own material | The character's script and model | Only authored, cited sources, one tap away |
| Best for | Questions before a visit | Visitors walking through the real building | Games and simulations | Places people cannot visit or cannot see well: closed, remote, gone or behind a fence |
Measured or generated
A measured place, not a generated world
AI can now generate 3D worlds from a sentence or a picture, and AI agents learn to act inside game worlds. Those worlds are plausible; they are not documented. Nothing in them has a source.
A field.tours place is scanned from the real thing, and every part of it that the guide talks about has a name and sources written by someone who knows the place. For a museum, a school or an energy company, that is the difference between a picture a visitor enjoys and one a visitor can trust.
When to choose another
When something else is the better choice
A home or a hotel to show quickly: a 360° photo tour is faster to make and costs less.
Visitors who are in the building anyway: an audio guide on their phone meets them where they stand.
A story that is a game: an engine built for game characters gives you more animation tools.
Questions before a visit, such as opening hours and tickets: a chat on your website is enough.
A place people cannot reach, a building that is gone, or a site behind a fence, where the place itself should answer: that is what field.tours is for.