3D Visualization Software and…Introducing a New Contributing Author

A couple of weeks ago, I dedicated a column to discussing the emergence of 3D geospatial data. This week, I was navigating around the U.S. Army Geospatial Center’s (AGC) website, which was formerly known as the Engineer Research and Development Center’s Topographic Engineering Center (TEC). As of October 1, 2009, AGC is operating as a Major Subordinate Command Center under the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers. Anyway, I was navigating the website and stumbled upon the most comprehensive list of commercial 3D visualization software programs I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been involved with 3D visualization software (mostly on the data side) since about 2001. In my experience, it has always been a labor intensive process to develop high quality 3D visualizations. Still images are easier than animations, but still a chore to do if you desire high quality rendering in the images.

Following are two images. One was rendered using medium quality resolution/textures vs. high quality resolution/textures:

It’s a big step in time, both development time and rendering time, to upgrade from medium quality to high quality renderings. Most 3D visualization software programs work at the medium level or lower. This is primarily because they produce 3D visualizations that are “good enough” for the task at hand.

3D visualizations have become much more common as compared to nearly a decade ago when I first started experimenting with them. Software has become more powerful and easier to use. Computing power has become exponentially more powerful. One of today’s computers can render as fast as small “server farm” back in the year 2000.

Back to the AGC

While surfing the AGC website, I found the most comprehensive listing of commercial 3D visualization software as I’ve seen anywhere. You can view it here. Be aware that some of the links might be obsolete, but certainly all of the 3D visualization softwares I’ve experienced are included in the listing.

Introducing our new Contributing Author

If you recall in my column a couple of weeks ago, I presented the many initiatives I plan for Geospatial Solutions in 2010. One of the initiatives was to enlist a number of industry specialists who could offer a different perspective from a very specific part of the geospatial industry. Well, I’m pleased to announce that Craig Greenwald is joining our team as our Contributing Author for Mobile GIS.

Although I’ll ask him to formally introduce himself in his first contribution, I’ve known Craig for well over ten years. In the mid-90’s, he and I worked together at the same company…his first job out of graduate school at Oregon State University. Craig then spent a number of years at ESRI on the ArcPad Team, interrupted by a brief stint at Bradshaw Consulting. Many of you may have run into Craig at the ESRI User Conference where he conducted numerous basic and advanced ArcPad workshops and briefings. Craig is now a principal at the GIS firm GeoMobile Innovations.

I’ll be publishing Craig’s first contribution in just a few weeks. I’ve asked him to provide us with a look forward into 2010 with respect to Mobile GIS. Will there be any disruptive technologies or will it just be the status quo? What kind of new productivity tools can we expect to see? What will be the trends in the industry?

I look forward to his answers and I hope you do too.

See you next week.