OM member Alex Ford flies over Snowdon like a bird with the aid of some astonishing new software from Misty Hill. And it didn't rain either...
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Misty Hill Terravisual Mapping -
First Look
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Price: £25.00
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Weight: Erm it's a CD
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Features: 3D
photomap captured using airbourne radar, and boasts up to
fifty centimetre vertical accuracy complete with interactive
viewer software, perfect weather guaranteed. Requires PC
with Pentium (4) or AMD Athlon, 500 MB of RAM, 64 MB
graphics card. e.g Nvidia Geforce 4MX420, 24* CD-ROM drive,
Windows 95, 98, 2000. XP or NT.
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Fantastically detailed and accurate, perfect weather
conditions and visibilty.
Limited interactivity with GPS or route-planning
software, plus only a few areas covered so far.
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The Concept Think a 3D map-come-piccy on your computer that
you can swoop over, dip into, use to plan routes or reminisce over
old ones and you're halfway there. You too can be a helicopter or a
bird flying over your favourite mountains.
Features Based on enhanced fifty
centimetre resolution full colour aerial photography with up to
50cm terrain accuracy. Viewer allows you to zoom, rotate or pan
across the map.
In Action by OM member Alex Ford
A new thing which I had not
even heard of until it fell through my letterbox and onto my PC
screen is Misty Hill Terravisual Mapping. It says it's a "Fully
Interactive 3D Digital Air Photo Map". Hmmm...no interaction
with GPS, no route planning overlay, no printing, a map covering just
36km square...Oh and a high end PC needed to run it on! I thought it
was a misprint when it said a 64Mwot-not video card and 500, yes 500M
do-dahs of RAM. But no. I tried it on my paltry 256M machine and it
died. In a sort of faux Monty Python way it said "go away or I shall
taunt you some more".
I was forced to visit my sister to use this
software (that's not come out right has it? I ALWAYS enjoy visiting
her AND my mother on a wet Sunday afternoon, always I tell
you!)
Ok, so here I go, Misty Hill Digital Air Mapping
in a nutshell: Limited use, very small practical purpose, and
£25 for what is basically a CD with just 4 pictures on
it...BUT...bloody lovely.
It is so absorbing. I spent two hours
just flying about over the Snowdon Horseshoe! I could actually follow
the course of the walk from the screen. From the start at Pen-Y-Pas,
where you could even see the cars up to the summit where the
monstrosity of the cafe was clear. The paths were easily visible, and
you go right in close or right up and take an eagle's eye view. You
could see the path snaking its way along up to Crib Goch. It's so nice.
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Recognise this? You should. Clue,
that's a railway running along the bottom of the
screenshot...
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My brother-in-law is disabled and he said it was the closest he'll
ever get to being up somewhere like that and at times it felt like he
was there...the sweeping pans across the mountains, the
flying in and out of
the corries. I know I am getting all, well, ga-ga, over this but it
is superb.
There is potential for it to be really useful mind
you - imagine sitting there thinking of a walk with an OS map in your
left hand, the pc with that running in front of you and a guide book
on your right hand side. The possibility is that you could walk a
route before leaving home and have a proper look over the terrain
that you will intend to cover. Ok the
resolution isn't superb when in close, but you can get the feel for
the ground.
For instance, you can't see the general blockiness of the
climb from Snowdon up to Y Llewidd but you can see it's a steep pull
and that the track down from Snowdon to it isn't clear and is steep
and looks quite nasty. You can also get to see just how narrow Crib
Goch is. My brother-in-law just shook his head at the idea of going
along that.
So what problems does it have? Well,
it could do with a "reset" button. If you get all tied up with the
controls, which can take a few attempts to get used to, you can end up
inside a mountain or under a lake, and getting out is a right
pain. So a reset button would be nice to bring you back to a present
position over the terrain. It could also do with an overview map showing where the
picture map links to the next are - at the moment the only thing you have to help you work out what's on each map is a
bit of a blurb, which is useless unless you know the names of the features in the
area.
But these are niggles! They pale into
insignificance when you start to fly about the mountains going
anywhere you want, flying in and out, up high and down low. You can
pan and zoom, gain altitude and rotate - and all at the same time (if you
have enough hands - or someone to help and hold the mouse!). It must
be seen to be believed. It's lovely it's amazing, it's worth
upgrading my PC for! Anyone know how much a new video card and some
RAM is?
Limited practical use, but fantastic entertainment and great
potential, in conjunctiion with a map, for visualising landscape
before you hit it. We had a gas with this, though it in its current
form, there's no interactivity with route-planning software or GPS.
For a small demo that will give you a very limited idea of the
potential of the far more powerful actual product, check out the web
site below, where you'll also find a list of the relatively small
number of areas covered so far.
