'Walking' across an auction site from the comfort of your own home

Is it possible to walk among all the lots of an auction from the comfort of your own home and view the lots from all angles? The answer is: yes! This is possible with the help of a 360° camera. Troostwijk Auctions deploys this ingenious camera system at some auctions. Teamlead Site Management Pascal Verbaten explains what exactly a 360° camera is, what the advantages are - for both bidders and sellers - and at which auctions Troostwijk chooses to deploy this camera.

"You know those online 3D tours of houses for sale? Those are made with a 360° camera. We can also do that at auctions. A kind of Google Streetview, but much more detailed." A few months ago, Pascal Verbaten introduced the 360° camera at Troostwijk Auctions and since then it has been used at various auctions.

Virtual tour
Pascal explains how it works. "On a 360° camera is a 3D lens. We put that camera on a tripod at a certain point in the room. Using an iPad, we control the camera. We make sure we ourselves are out of the picture and then the camera makes a scan. After that scan, which takes about twenty seconds, we move the camera five to ten meters away. There we make another scan. That's how we go through the whole room. The system then links all the 3D images together and so you get a virtual tour of the space."

Lots in the spotlight
"We can then highlight the lots in that virtual tour," Pascal continues. "If you then hover over them with your finger or mouse, a dot lights up, a kind of spotlight. If you click on it, it takes you to a Web page with information about the particular lot. There you can also make a bid."

A big advantage for bidders, says Pascal. "Sometimes auction sites are in quite remote places, often throughout Europe. If you as a buyer are interested in a single lot, it is enormously time-consuming and costly to travel to that location for a viewing day to view the lot. Now you can view the lots from the comfort of your own home and on your own time, just at your computer."

The 360° camera also offers great advantages for sellers. "As a seller, you reach a much larger audience this way. And you make it easy for your bidders. Truly a unique selling point.

Valuable addition
The auctions at which Troostwijk Auctions deploys the 360° camera Pascal carefully selects. "If an auction location is far away, or not accessible to everyone, it is interesting to make a 3D tour with the 360° camera. Of course, we also consider the expected yield of the auction. Making such a video tour costs about two man-days, so it has to be proportional."

Previous auctions in which Troostwijk Auctions has created a virtual tour have shown higher traffic. "It is an incredibly valuable addition for us, so we are going to use the camera much more often in the future."

View a virtual tour of an auction here.