Vistapro is a low cost, 3-D landscape visualisation programme. By combining artificial intelligence, chaos mathematics and user-defined variables, Vistapro simulates the visual characteristics of natural geology and vegetation upon topographic datasets. In addition, the package allows the user complete control over features such as lighting conditions and cloud cover which, taken together with its rendering capabilities, serves to breathe a semblance of life into the flatly coloured polygon worlds of traditional virtual reality. Vistapro can be used to render single frames or generate entire animation sequences as the observer moves through a landscape and, through the use of a companion programme called Vistamorph, can be used to animate changing lighting, geomorphological and vegetation effects over time.

As a result of this flexibility, Vistapro has become pivotal to much of our work, not only in producing still and animated visualisations of otherwise static, uniform datasets, but also in generating data for incorporation into other applications. An example of the latter is in the production of bitmap overlays to be draped over landscape models in programmes such as Truespace, or used in VRML worlds. This enables faster, smaller worlds to be produced by reducing the number of component polygons, whilst at the same time permitting the shadow detail inherent in the Vistapro-derived overlays, to communicate the full complexity of the original micro-topographic trends visible before generalisation.

The main limitation with Vistapro lies with its restricted data import capabilities. Vistapro can import its own proprietary DEM format along with that of the United States Geographic Survey (USGS). Although many applications can export USGS data, for example Arc/Info, the particular implementations of the standard utilised by the majority of commercial GIS utilities are unreadable by Vistapro. It is possible to import ASCII data files into the package but this usually entails some degree of macro programming, as in the case of Arc/Info, and the use of several intermediate applications.

Photomodeller is a commercial utility that serves to produce 3-D models from groups of photographic images, and in so doing permits the rapid generation of highly accurate standing building surveys from photographic records alone. In practice several photographs of a given building are taken from a number of different camera angles and a number of common features, which can take the form of points, lines or polygons, are marked using Photomodeller. Through a process of interpolation these marks are then accurately converted into 3-D spatially referenced entities, which can be transferred directly to CAD, modelling or VRML generation packages.

Most of the VRML we have produced has been constructed using a family of VRML modelling packages produced by the company Caligari. These comprise the initial product called Fountain, later renamed Pioneer, and its more feature- enhanced sister, Pioneer Pro. Due to the inevitable unreliability of the beta release versions of the above packages that were used in developing our approaches, a further member of the product family was also utilised. This comprised Truespace, a non-VRML but highly robust 3-D modelling and rendering package, most commonly used to generate high quality rendered single frames and animations. Truespace was often used to assist in the fine-tuning of the completed VRML models; however, with the full release versions of Pioneer now available this requirement is no longer necessary.
It should be noted, however, that Pioneer is a VRML browser in its own right and worlds produced solely within it may not function correctly within other browsers. As a result of this, it must be realised that when using Pioneer to construct worlds that are to be widely distributed, the resultant files may require some degree of manual editing before they can be released.

Land Survey System (LSS)

With the likes of the hugely popular HTC Vive and Oculus Rift now available to buy around the world, many Mac users are wondering if you can use VR on a Mac and if so, how. Mac Pro Software Free. Virtual reality software developers Software. I want to run Microsoft Word 2000 on an Apple computer, and store salesman said that it.

The Land Survey System is an excellent survey data processing workshop produced by the McCarthy-Taylor Partnership. It includes powerful TIN generation algorithms and its highly flexible design and data export capabilities makes it ideally suited to the peculiar requirements of archaeological landscape survey.

A good 2-D paint package is essential in all 3-D modelling exercises, and Paint Shop Pro is notable in that it is a cost-effective shareware package that met, and continues to meet, all of our growing requirements. Of particular utility is its ability to import and export the majority of raster, and some vector, graphics file formats.

Wcvt2Pov (version 2.6c)

This shareware 3-D file conversion programme can convert a wide range of 3D data formats, including AutoCAD, into VRML, but has no modelling capabilities. An improved version (2.7 beta) is currently available but only runs on Windows 95 and NT platforms.

A note regarding computer platforms

It should be noted that all of the packages mentioned here run under DOS or Windows 3.1 on a PC platform. This is due in part to the wide availability of relevant PC utilities and also to a desire to ensure that the approaches developed could be made available to the widest possible research audience, not simply those with unlimited access to UNIX-based visualisation engines. Similar packages, with the possible exception of Photomodeller, are no doubt available on other platforms such as the Mac.

© Internet Archaeology URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue1/gillings/software.html
Last updated: Tue Sep 5 1996

Vista and Vista Pro are 3D landscape generation programs originally for the Amiga, Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows (PC) range of home computers. It was written by John Hinkley and its own About box describes it as 'a 3-D landscape generator and projector capable of accurately displaying real-world and fractal landscapes.'

It was published by Virtual Reality Labs and developed by Hypercube Engineering.^[1]The latest versions were published and developed by Monkey Byte Development.^[2]

Graphics Generation[edit]

Vista operates similarly to a ray tracer in that light paths are generated. The user specifies light sources, and camera angles. The ground may be colored to create different ground styles. Vista has water, tree and cloud effects, making some images almost photorealistic. The ground itself may either be generated from a random (or user inputted) number, or it may use DEM landscape files for real-world views, the software having come with a number of maps of Mars and Earth.

Vista can load and save output images in PCX, BMP, JPG and Targa formats. PCX files can also be imported as elevations and ground colors to allow third-party creation of landscapes in other image editors.

Trees can be placed on landscapes as either 2D or 3D objects. In 2D, the trees always face the camera and are fast to generate. 3D trees are created using fractals and can be given a variable bending of the branches to make them look more complicated.

Releases[edit]

For the Amiga:

• Vista v1.20
• Vista v1.21
• VistaPro v1.0 (released in 1991)^[3]
• VistaPro v2.02 (released in 1992)^[4][5]
• VistaPro v3.0 ^[6][7] (released in 1993 with AGA support)^[8][9]
• VistaLite v3.01 (version for smaller memory Amiga computers)^[10]
• VistaPro v3.3b
• VistaPro v3.04b
• VistaPro v3.05
• VistaPro v3.10o (unreleased)^[11]

For IBM PC:

• VistaPro v3^[12]
• VistaPro v3.12 (released in 1994)
• VistaPro v4.04 (released in 1997)
• VistaPro v4.11 ^[13]
• VistaPro Renderer v4.2 (released in 2005)^[14]

For Macintosh: Generate the dmarc record.

• VistaPro v1.08 (released in 1991)^[15]

Compatibility[edit]

The Amiga version of Vista works on all models of Amiga, however due to the low processor speeds generation of landscapes take a long time to complete. It was not unusual for a landscape generation to take several hours on a stock 68000 based computer. Later versions for 32 bit Amigas, an executable supporting the MC68881/68882 FPU is available, speeding up rendering considerably when such a chip is present.

The PC version runs in MS-DOS for the earlier versions and from 4.00 onwards it runs on all versions of 32-bit Microsoft Windows.

Popular culture[edit]

Its most famous use was for the landscape used in the opening credits of The Chart Show. This sequence involved a silver spaceship flying through a series of valleys that had been generated using VistaPro (Vista didn't support generating animations until the Pro version was released). Vista was also used (both PC and Amiga versions) for the book by Arthur C. Clarke called 'The Snows of Olympus', a picture book about terraforming Mars.^[16]

See also[edit]

Notes and references[edit]

1. ^http://amr.abime.net/review_21979
2. ^http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/VistaPro_For_Mac_Released
3. ^http://amr.abime.net/review_21979
4. ^http://www.rtfract.com/digitland.htm
5. ^http://amr.abime.net/review_18635
6. ^http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/7881/Vista-Pro-3-0/
7. ^http://www.cu-amiga.co.uk/bissue/sep97.html
8. ^http://obligement.free.fr/articles/amiga_histoire_1993.php
9. ^http://encanta.avalonsoftware.org/idgaw/56/vistaprotut.php
10. ^http://encanta.avalonsoftware.org/idgaw/56/vistaprotut.php
11. ^http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28341
12. ^http://www.tdt3d.com/articles_viewer.php?art_id=25
13. ^http://www.creative-3d.net/vistapro.cfm
14. ^http://mediadesigner.digitalmedianet.com/article/New-VistaPro-Renderer-427-Released-34254
15. ^http://www.macworld.com/article/1018964/vistapro.html
16. ^The Snows of Olympus - A garden on Mars, Gollancz, 1994

External links[edit]