logo
Skip to content
Docs: Virtual Tour Studio

Create hotspot

Ask AI
Claude (opens in a new tab) ChatGPT (opens in a new tab)
Show in the full doc

How to add a hotspot:

  1. In the editor, open the Elements tab.
  2. Click an icon under Icons (View All opens the whole icon library), or click Insert text to pano under Texts. The hotspot is placed in the middle of the current view and selected. Right-clicking the panorama also offers Insert icon, Insert text, Insert image and Insert icon with action.
  3. Drag the hotspot to where it should be.
  4. To make it do something, click Interactions in the toolbar above the panorama. Under Click, choose Navigate to another scene (panorama), Open popup, Open a link, Open a photo gallery or Change view. Under Hover, Show tooltip adds a tooltip.

To place an image or a video, upload it in the Library tab (Assets), then click it. Hotspots can’t be added to 360° video or 3D Gaussian splat scenes.

How to add a hotspot that opens a video:

  1. Add an icon as above, or right-click the panorama and choose Insert icon with action › Popup.
  2. With the icon selected, click Interactions, then Open popup under Click. The popup editor opens. If the hotspot already has the action, click Create popup (or Edit popup) under it.
  3. In the Content tab, click the video button (the YouTube icon) in the toolbar. Embed video URL takes a YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Vimeo or TikTok link; Upload video from device takes an MP4 file up to 20 MB, or up to 500 MB on the Super Cool plan.
  4. Click Save popup.

To play a video on the panorama itself instead, add it from Library › Assets as a video hotspot. Video Options in its toolbar sets Autoplay, Loop, Controls and Muted.

  • Create icon hotspot:
    • 100000 free icons to select.
    • change icon color, opacity
    • animation for icon
  • Create image hotspot:
    • format: jpeg, gif, png.
    • change opacity
  • Create video hotspot:
    • format: mp4
    • settings for loop, autoplay, mute.
    • change opacity
  • Create text hotspot
    • set font size, font family, color, opacity
  • Hotspot Display Modes
    • Stitched Mode: The hotspot is attached to the panorama surface. It will scale with zoom (gets bigger when zooming in, smaller when zooming out). Feels like part of the image — similar to a patch on the pano
    • Fly Mode: The hotspot floats above the panorama. Its size stays constant, regardless of zoom level. Useful when you want the hotspot to remain clearly visible at all times
  • Hotspot visibility (zoom-based)
    • When a hotspot is selected, open Visibility in the hotspot toolbar (eye icon).
    • Always show (default): the hotspot is visible at every zoom level. Existing hotspots without visibility settings behave this way.
    • Show at certain zoom levels: the hotspot appears only when the viewer zoom is within a range you set.
    • Use the dual-handle slider to set the range from zoomed out to zoomed in (0% = fully zoomed out, 100% = fully zoomed in). You can also type values in the number fields.
    • The range is clamped to your tour’s min/max zoom limits (set in Project Settings → View settings).
    • When you first switch to zoom-based visibility, PanoCool suggests a sensible default: visible from the current zoom level inward (more zoomed in).
    • While editing, the selected hotspot stays visible so you do not lose it while adjusting the range; unselect or publish the tour to preview hide/show as visitors will see it.
    • Available for icon, image, video, text, HTML, and polygon hotspots.
  • Hotspot actions:
    • click to open popup: write the popup’s content in a rich text editor, with images, videos, web pages, a 360° view of a scene and photo galleries — see the Popup content section
    • click to open other scene (panorama), we can call this is navigation hotspot — see the Navigation hotspot styles section, and the Go to scene settings section for its transition and arrival view
    • click to open a new link, can open in current tab or in a new tab
    • click to open a photo gallery: JPG, PNG or WebP photos, up to 20 MB each
    • click to change to different view
    • mouse hover to show tooltip

Tutorials: