San Luis Obispo, California-based Virtual Reality Laboratories Inc has released a multimedia version of its virtual reality landscape program, Vistapro 3.0 for MS-DOS personal computers on CD ROM. Using real-world data from the US Geological Survey and from NASA Spacecraft, Vistapro 3.0 is a three-dimensional landscape simulation program designed to enable the user to re-create and explore landscapes on the Earth and Mars in 24-bit colour. Vistapro generates left and right images for three-dimensional stereo viewing. New with the CD version of Vistapro is the ability to export landscapes as three-dimensional DXF objects which can be used with Autodesk’s 3D Studio and other three-dimensional ray tracing programs. This enables the user to combine 3D Studio objects with Vistapro landscapes in both single-frame images and animation sequences. The user can specify a MIDI music file or CD audio track to be played with the animation. MIDI music files and one CD audio track are included. It comes with 4,690 landscape files – more than 273Mb of data that include much of the US at a resolution of 30 yards between data points so that you can zoom in for detailed views; all of the US at a lower level of detail; the entire surface of Mars between 50 degrees south and 50 degrees north latitude; the Matterhorn in Switzerland; Mount Fuji in Japan; Mount Etna in Italy and Ayers Rock, Australia. The suggested price is $150.
