New Product Announcement
24 messages in this thread
ATTENTION – VISTA OWNERS!!!
SHIPPING NOV. 12 — VALLES MARINERIS – MARS!!!
6 Disk set of 88 Vista DEM Landscape files covering
the Valles Marineris canyons on Mars.
List Price – $80.00 – Available direct, and shortly
off the shelf.
Areas covered include:
Noctis Labyrinthus
Tithonium Chasma
Ius Chasma
Hebes Chasma
Ophir Chasma
Cander Chasma
Melas Chasma
Coprates Chasma
Capri Chasma
Eos Chasma
Gangis Chasma
For more information call Virtual Reality Laboratories, Inc.
at (805) 545-8515.
Ask for Mars.
These DEM Landscapes are compatible with Vista and soon to
be released VistaPro.
Clint <VRLI>
Can you explain what Vista and VistaPro are for those folks that don't
know?
Steve
Steve:
Sure thing! Vista is a Landscape generation program that uses USGS
DEM data as the 'seed' for generating its images. Thus, instead of being
restricted to imaginary places to explore, you can render images of real
places, such as Yosemite Valley, or Olympus Mons on Mars. Vista renders in
320 x 200 HAM, and can generate up to 133000 polygons/frame. In areas where
the camera is close to the ground, these polygons are apparent, but in the
distant, they become smaller than a single pixel, and you get very
realistic images. You can set the camera and target anywhere you'd like on
the landscape, and you can set the light source from any of 4 directions.
Vista requires 1 meg of memory and can run on a standard unaccelerated
Amiga, however it does come with a version that has been optimized for use
with a math co-processor, so if you have one, your rendering times are
greatly reduced. On a standard Amiga, the highest resolution render takes
about 20 minutes, but on an Amiga 3000 at 25mhz, the rendering time is down
to between 2 and 3 minutes.
VistaPro is a professional version of Vista, which will be released
next week (November 16). I will post a New Product Announcement which will
cover its features in detail, but I'll highlight a few here. VistaPro
supports 24 bit IFF, Hi-Res, Interlace, Overscan, HAM (in Lo-Res). You have
infinite control over light source position. You can adjust the vertical
scale of the landscapes. It has a completely adjustable lens on the camera,
you can zoom in or out as much as you like. There is Gouraud Shading which
removes the polygons you see when close to the surface. Plus alot more.
There _is_ an upgrade path for those who have already purchased Vista.
Clint <VRLI>
Can you upload an example picture of what VistaPro can do?
Steve
Steve:
I sure can. I think I already uploaded one awhile back, but I can't
recall what I called it, or where I put it, so I'll upload a few more.
Clint <VRLI> P.S. I'll try to do
it later tonite, or tomorrow at latest.
Steve:
I uploaded 3 pictures made with VistaPro this morning. They are over
in the New Uploads section of Amiga Arts, or will be as soon as they have
been 'approved' by the SYSOP. They are hi-res, interlace, overscan images
two using Gouraud Shading, and one without. The first is of the Noctis
Labyrinthus section of Valles Marineris, the second is the Mt. Baldy area
in Southern California, and the third is 'home'. (ie. San Luis Obispo, CA)
These are quite representitive of what VistaPro can do, and have not been
retouched or modified in any way. Also, they do not represent the
'prettiest' areas available, they were just a random selection done at 2:30
am when I realized that I had not yet gotten around to posting some.
Clint <VRLI>
If Vista pro saves in 24-bit, how about posting some of those files so
those of us with the Ham-E board can see how well it does.
BEN Leigh's Computer's
Ben:
OK, I'll try to post one tonite. They tend to be quite large (250K)
and I don't know how well they lharc, so 'several' may take a few days to
accomplish at 2400 baud.
Clint <VRLI>
Thanks, they'll be joining my in store Ham-E demo as soon as they are
posted
BEN Leigh's Computer's
Ben:
It's 2am, and I just finished putting together the master disk for
VistaPro to send to the duplicator later today. I will try to get a 24 bit
rendering posted later today, but things are _very_ hectic trying to
release this much stuff at once. I found I had room on the landscape disk
to add another landscape, so VistaPro customers will get one more landscape
than the manual says. VistaPro comes with the 8 landscapes found on Vista,
as well as 10 new landscapes.
Clint <VRLI>
Perhaps this has already been said, but when will VistaPro be avaialble,
and how much?
Joe:
I'll be posting an announcement tomorrow which will answer that very
question. The _final_ disks were red-labeled to the duplicator this
morning.
Clint <VRLI>
Thanks! I took a look at them, and was getting ready to approve them, but
Betty beat me to it. I really liked the pictures.
Steve
Steve:
That's good to hear. <grin> I'll upload a couple of 24 bit images
over the next few days as time permits. We're releasing a total of 48
different expansion disks (between Vista Landscapes and Mike's Space
Selections) and VistaPro this week, so I'm really hopping. I'll post the
VistaPro announcement on Wednesday, and Mike's Space Selection announcement
tomorrow. Then I'll crawl into a hole and hibernate for awhile. <grin>
Clint <VRLI>
Any lunar terrain, or other planets, moons?
Joe:
We have been promised some lunar data, but have been too busy to
persue it. Hopefully after this release we can go back on acquisition mode
and pick it up. It looks like Venus data is nearly a year away, unless we
can convince one of the sceintists directly involved to release it early,
which is very doubtful. There is Miranda data out there somewhere, but we
haven't hit on the right contacts yet, but we're trying.
Clint <VRLI>
Clint,
From what I've read, Miranda has some of the neates geography. From
what I gather, Miranda and the other Uranian moons may have been blasted
apart and reassembled do to violent relaxation of the tilted satelite
orbits following the cataclysm which tilted Uranus on its side. By any
chance did you catch the Nova special with Patrick "John Luc" Stewart?
Triton gave Voyager a few visual surprises as a parting gift.
FL
Frank:
No I didn't. I watch so little TV, that when something is on that I
want to watch, I seldom remember in time to watch it. There is still a lot
of data out there and nobody wants to play with it any more than I do, so
don't worry, I'll keep persuing it.
Clint <VRLI>
Clint,
Any chance a future version of VistaPro will support HAM-E ?
Michael
Michael:
VistaPro 24 bit IFF will load quite nicely onto the HAM-E board
right now. Ben had some VistaPro Images on display at AmiExpo in Anaheim.
Ben was instrumental in convincing the author to add the complete range of
resolutions into the 24 bit output.
Clint <VRLI>
Clint,
Glad to hear it! I must have missed the details in your posting.
Michael
Michael:
More announcements to come later this week. Just finished
VistaPro master disks, so the Friday release looks good.
Clint <VRLI>
Clint,
BTW, I was really wrong about the Malibu Canyon tip. It is in fact the
Monterey Canyon referenced in the Feb 1990 issue of Nat. Geeo. The data
was compiled by NOAA.
Michael
Michael:
I probably still have that issue around, I'll check it out.
Thanks!
Clint <VRLI>