P3D Virtual Manhattan

[jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Gabriel Jacob)]

John Roberts writes,
>Even this restricted topic has some interesting points to consider. For
>example, suppose somebody creates a "virtual Manhattan", with great care
>to accuracy of depiction, and I find some point of view that makes a
>particularly striking picture, but which neither the creator of the
>digital file nor the architects of the city envisioned? 

Its been done! If you have Microsoft's Flight Simulator, you can explore
a very accurate representation of the Big Apple. For that matter you
can also explore quite a few major cities around the world. The other 
interesting aspect of all this is since it is rendered in 3-D (not
stereoscopic), it is a very easy matter to convert them to stereoscopic
3-D with your own software (sorry George for combining the two terms).
There are a few other simulators that offer realistic
terrain/environments such as Sierra's Pro-Pilot. In the above programs
the terrain, major buildings, bridges are all rendered as 3-D models. 

Ninetendo 64's Stunt Pilot is another program that has a representation
of the US with major cities but is not accurate at all. It has very 
nice rendering and is nonetheless still fun to fly/explore. You can
capture images and convert them to stereo if you input them to a
computer first.

Another interesting program for exploring and converting to stereoscopic
3-D is 3-D Explorer USA by Delorme. It reminds me alot of Vista-Pro but
without having to input any scripts or DEM data. Also it does it in
real-time! Of course not as many polygons calculated as the highest
setting in Vista-Pro allows but is a very good trade-off.

Check out an anaglyph picture from space of the Earth
(not taken by me!) at, http://www.generation.net/~jacob/small.gif
for a 75k (350x350 pixels) image or, 
http://www.generation.net/~jacob/big.gif same image but 500k
1000x1000 pixels image.

Gabriel


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