360 virtual tour image resolution and file size specifications determine how sharp your tour looks on different devices, how fast it loads, and whether it meets the technical requirements of platforms like Matterport, Google Street View, Kuula, and Travvir. Using the wrong resolution costs you either quality (too low) or loading speed and storage costs (too high). This guide covers the exact specifications you need for every major platform and use case.
Understanding 360 Image Resolution
Why 360 Images Need Higher Resolution Than Standard Photos
A standard photograph displays as a flat image. When you view a standard photo at full screen on a 4K monitor (3840 × 2160 pixels), the entire image fills the screen.
A 360 photo is displayed differently: the viewer shows only a portion of the full image at any given time — roughly the equivalent of a standard photograph's field of view, extracted from the larger spherical source. For a 360 viewer with a 90° horizontal field of view, you're displaying 90° of a 360° sphere — meaning only 25% of the full image width is visible at once.
This means that for a 360 photo to look as sharp as a standard photo when viewed, it needs 4× the resolution of the equivalent standard image. A 360 photo that looks good in a virtual tour viewer needs to be a minimum of 8,000 × 4,000 pixels (32 megapixels) to deliver sharp results at normal viewing field-of-view levels.
The Equirectangular Aspect Ratio
360 photos in equirectangular projection always have a 2:1 aspect ratio — twice as wide as they are tall. Common standard sizes: 4096 × 2048 (minimum for acceptable quality), 8192 × 4096 (standard high quality), 11520 × 5760 (high-end professional), 16384 × 8192 (maximum quality, requires advanced camera or stitching). Any image that doesn't maintain the 2:1 ratio will appear distorted in 360 viewers — check your export settings to ensure this ratio is preserved.
Platform-Specific Resolution Requirements
Google Street View / Google Business Profile
Minimum resolution: 7.5 megapixels (no minimum dimension specified, but files below approximately 3000 × 1500 are rejected). Maximum upload size: 75 megapixels. Recommended resolution: 8192 × 4096 (33 megapixels) for optimal display quality in Google Maps and Google Business Profile viewer. File format: JPEG with embedded XMP photo sphere metadata. Google compresses all uploads on ingestion — uploading at higher resolution than required does not increase delivered quality beyond their compression threshold.
Facebook 360 Photos
Minimum resolution: 2048 × 1024. Maximum upload size: 30 MB. Recommended resolution: 6000 × 3000 for good quality in Facebook's viewer. Note: Facebook applies aggressive compression on upload, reducing visible quality significantly. Uploading at maximum resolution minimises but does not eliminate this quality loss.
YouTube 360 Video
360 video, not photos, but for reference: minimum effective resolution for acceptable quality is 5760 × 2880 (8K). Lower resolutions produce noticeably pixelated results due to the portion-of-sphere display method described above.
Travvir Virtual Tours
Travvir accepts equirectangular 360 photos with recommended resolution of 8192 × 4096 for best quality in the tour viewer. The platform handles compression and delivery optimisation automatically, serving appropriate quality tiers based on the viewer's device and connection speed. Files up to 50 MB are accepted in JPEG format.
Matterport
Matterport uses its own capture hardware and process — uploaded 360 images for use in Matterport tours require the Matterport Link feature or third-party integration. For standard use, Matterport tour quality is determined by capture hardware, not upload resolution.
File Format and Compression
JPEG vs PNG for 360 Photos
JPEG is the correct format for 360 photos in almost all cases. JPEG's compression reduces file sizes to manageable levels (4–25 MB for a high-quality 360 image) and all major 360 platforms expect JPEG input. The XMP metadata required to identify a file as a 360 image is embedded in the JPEG header — apps and cameras do this automatically.
PNG is lossless but produces enormous file sizes for 360 images (often 100–400 MB) with no visible quality improvement over high-quality JPEG at the same resolution. Do not use PNG for 360 virtual tour images.
JPEG Quality Setting
When exporting 360 images manually: use JPEG quality 85–92%. This range provides visually lossless quality at manageable file sizes. Reducing quality below 80% saves minimal additional file size while introducing visible compression artefacts (blocking and banding) that are particularly obvious in large flat-coloured areas like skies, ceilings, and walls.
Smartphone 360 Photo Resolution Output
What Modern Smartphones Produce
Smartphone 360 apps using guided multi-frame capture typically produce output in the range of 6000 × 3000 to 10000 × 5000 pixels, depending on the phone's camera resolution and the number of frames captured in the sequence. High-end smartphones (iPhone 15 Pro, Samsung S24 Ultra, Google Pixel 8 Pro) running Travvir at maximum quality produce output in the 8000–10000 pixel wide range — meeting or exceeding all major platform quality requirements.
Dedicated 360 Camera Output
Entry-level: Ricoh Theta SC2 → 5376 × 2688 pixels. This is below ideal for high-quality tour viewing but acceptable for most business applications. Mid-range: Insta360 One RS 1-Inch → 7680 × 3840 pixels. High-end: Insta360 Pro 2 → 8000 × 4000 per lens, stitched to approximately 11520 × 5760 pixels. For most commercial virtual tour applications, a high-end smartphone running Travvir matches or exceeds entry-to-mid-range dedicated camera output.
Conclusion: Match Resolution to Platform and Purpose
The practical recommendation: shoot at maximum quality settings your phone supports, export at JPEG 90% quality, and check the file dimension before uploading to ensure it meets the platform minimum (minimum 6000 × 3000 for Google Street View quality threshold). For Travvir tours, the app handles optimisation automatically — just select the highest quality capture setting available in the app.
Do not obsess over resolution beyond 8192 × 4096 for business virtual tour applications — beyond this point, the quality improvement is invisible to the majority of viewers on standard devices, and the file size increase creates unnecessary loading delays.
