360° Virtual Tours in Portugal: Seven Projects and What Each One Is For

In Portugal, "360° virtual tour" usually means real estate. It is the most visible use, not the most interesting one. Over the last few years we have captured museums, a national theatre, a castle, an exhibition that no longer exists, a car showroom and a company's premises, and in almost none of them was selling the main goal.

Here are seven projects, what each one had to solve, and what that says about choosing a virtual tour for your own space. For prices there is a separate guide: how much a 360° virtual tour costs in 2026.

Heritage: opening what doesn't open every day

The Portuguese Army: Military Academy, Military Museum and the room where 25 April began

Three captures for the Portuguese Army: the Military Academy, the Military Museum of Lisbon and the room where the 25 April revolution began, a place that is on no civilian map. Each capture was prepared on site with historians and unit commanders, so the digital version reads the way the institution wants to be remembered. Today the same tour serves recruitment, goes into classrooms and lets anyone step past a velvet rope that, online, doesn't exist. See the case.

Castelo de Castro Marim: 14,000 m²

For the Castro Marim town council we captured the medieval castle and the heritage trail around it: 14,000 square metres of walls, courtyards and excavations. We used a Leica BLK360 laser scanner, because standard Matterport hardware can't handle that scale in sunlight and on uneven stone. When it was delivered in 2021 it was the largest capture ever recorded on the Matterport platform. It serves tourism, schools and the diaspora that rarely comes back. See the case.

Convento do Beato, Lisbon

A 16th-century monastery that is now an events venue. Captured in a single day, in HDR, and live on the venue's own website since 2022. It is the first link the sales team sends to any qualified enquiry: clients arrive at the site visit already knowing the layout. See the case.

Culture: keeping what is about to end

Teatro Nacional D. Maria II

A 3D capture of the whole building, from the auditorium to the fly tower, with drone passes over Rossio square. It has two uses: a virtual front door for audiences, and a measurable model that touring companies use to plan their load-in without travelling to Lisbon. With the building now under renovation, a second capture is planned for the reopening. See the case.

SONAE × Roy Lichtenstein, Centro Colombo

An exhibition in a shopping centre has an end date. We captured it while it was still up, with gallery lighting and no crowds, so the visit could carry on after the works went home. Every piece has its own link, so press and educators can point straight to it. See the case.

Business: selling, onboarding, training

A Porsche showroom

A Matterport tour of a Porsche showroom, built into the dealer's website. Every car and every viewpoint has its own URL: the sales team sends a direct link to a model, and Google indexes it as a page. See the case.

TPF: a tour that was never published

A 3D capture of TPF's premises, used to onboard new staff, show the space to partners without travel, and rehearse evacuation. It is private: no public URL, no indexing, access granted case by case. See the case.

What this means for your space

Before choosing hardware or a platform, it is worth answering three questions.

• Who will use the tour? The public, clients, students, internal teams and technicians each need a different finish.
• Is it for showing or for measuring? A 360° tour is enough to show a space. If someone will take measurements, as at D. Maria II, you need a survey-grade 3D capture.
• Public or private? An indexed tour helps with search; a premises tour like TPF's has to stay closed.

The difference between Matterport, Gaussian splatting and photogrammetry is explained in this article, and uses beyond marketing in this one. The published tours above run on our own platform, VRBox.io. If you want a tour of a space in Portugal, talk to us.

FAQ

What is the difference between a 360° virtual tour and a 3D tour?

A 360° tour is made of linked panoramic photos: it shows a space well but has no geometry. A 3D tour, made with Matterport or a laser scanner, reconstructs the space, so you can measure distances and see a floor plan and a dollhouse view. For marketing, 360° is often enough; for technical use, you need 3D.

How long does it take to capture a space?

It depends on the area and the light. The Convento do Beato was captured in one working day; the 14,000 m² at Castro Marim took several days. Post-production and publishing come on top of that.

Does a virtual tour help with Google?

It can, if every viewpoint has its own URL and the tour sits in a real page of the site, as with the Porsche showroom. A tour locked in a black box inside an iframe counts for little in search.

How much does a 360° virtual tour cost?

From about €300 to more than €25,000, depending on the space, the capture method and the finish. It is all in our pricing guide.