 Would
you like to preview an upcoming flight across country, view the way your
neighborhood looks from above, or make a virtual flyover of famous United
States landmarks? Well, with DeLorme's new 3-D Explorer USA, V 1.0, you
can do all of those things and more.
This CD-ROM creates a bird's eye view of the continental United States, and allows you to see America's diverse terrain as you may never have experienced it before. One of the major strengths of this particular program is that the topography was developed using US Geological Survey elevation data. This makes 3-D Explorer a very accurate rendition of current United States topography. DeLorme provides a staffed technical support line Monday through Friday between 8:30 and 5:00 p.m., EST, a fax line, a separate 24 hour fax library for technical and sales information, a BBS (Bulletin Board System) line, and an E-Mail address for technical support staff. They may also be reached on the World Wide Web at: http://www.delorme.com, if you have access to the Internet. Their website has the answers to a number of the most commonly asked questions about the program. Minimum system requirements call for an IBM-compatible computer running Microsoft Windows 95, with a 486DX (66MHz) processor, 16 MB of RAM, 5 MB of free hard drive space, a 2X CD-ROM drive, Super VGA graphics, a 256-color monitor and a mouse. However, they recommend an Intel Pentium 100MHz or higher processor, a 4X CD-ROM drive, a graphics card with 2 MB of 16-bit color video RAM, and a joystick. An added bonus that comes with the CD is that 3-D Explorer USA will install Microsoft DirectX 3.0 on your system, if it is not already present. Direct3D-compatible graphics accelerator cards are also supported and recommended. This program was installed and run on a 486DX2 80MHz system with 24 MB of RAM, a 4X CD-ROM drive, and a 2 MB graphics accelerator card, running under Windows 95. Installation was not difficult, but once it was installed, the program seemed to run rather slowly on my system. It is likely that a system with a true 3D graphics accelerator card and/or a faster, higher-end processor would make 3-D Explorer USA a bigger success. DeLorme claims that this program is "easier to use than a flight simulator," a claim which I cannot agree or disagree with since I've had very little experience using flight simulator programs. My comfort level with the program and it's list of commands is growing slowly at this writing. FeaturesThere are a number of features this program touts that are of interest, including being more true to life due to the use of actual topography data gleaned from United States Geological Surveys. Flexibility is built into the program, for example, you can choose to fly at different times of the day, (sunrise, morning, noon, afternoon, sunset or night). You can magnify terrain surfaces by selecting from several magnification options which allow you to exaggerate the surface of the terrain.There is also the Zoom option, which lets you get more detail of the surface area. Bird's eye views are another choice that you may opt for, which give you an aerial view from up to 10,000 feet above the ground. 3-D Explorer USA shows major lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and bays. The elevation resolution is accurate to within 50 feet and spatial resolution is 1423 feet per sample point at the highest detail setting. Last, but certainly not least is the ability to record your trip in an AVI format file, to save it and later playback your favorite views or send your AVI files to others to view. In addition, 3-D Explorer USA comes with several pre-recorded, built-in AVI files of interesting trips which you can download and explore on your own. As for the actual flying itself, you control and can change altitude, speed and lighting. You have commands for turning, pitching, banking, stopping, leveling out or locating a particular place. You can also take a snapshot of the current view you have and save it to a bitmap file. There are built-in items to make the program more user-friendly, such as the Toolbar, Status bar and Title bar. These bars provide you with either information or the ability to alter certain features of the program. Overall, the software was of moderate difficulty for me, but those of you familiar with flight simulator type programs may find it quite a bit easier. It did seem to offer many options and allows the user to control the results he obtains. This program is available exclusively for Windows 95 users. While surfing on the world wide web, on the 21st of February, I discovered an online software company that offered this product at a sale price of $19.99. It can be ordered directly using the DeLorme 1-800-452-5931 telephone number, ordered from DeLorme online at the internet address http://www.delorme.com or is available in local software retail stores. Larry Grosskopf is a Clinical Psychologist at the San Antonio State Hospital. He and his wife have three children at home, ages 15, 4 and 2. |