What is Visual Nature Studio (VNS) and Adobe Photoshop? 

Well, from VNS Version 3, you see Hawai'i in the Hawaiian Islands like this ...

... and this is a VNS 3 closeup perspective of the model using U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Data (NLCD) data and VNS 3's NLCD Environment with Ecosystems with foliage and Textures ...

... that Red Line in the background, at the top, is exactly 20.3000 North Longitude, Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection, North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83) ... thanks to the integration of John Snyder's (USGS) General Cartographic Tranformation Package (GCTP) into VNS Version 1 by the people at 3D Nature; ... and the Red Line is the northern boundary of my overhead shot from 25 kilometers up in VNS Version 3 ... see "Example of Imaginekind Work" link at the bottom of each webpage on this site ... and now, this is the same scene; but as hypsometric (elevation) Ground Effects, as seen in Abobe Photoshop ...

... and here is a closeup of the various Renderings from VNS as a Photohop composite.

... and here is a closeup of the various Renderings from VNS as a Photohop composite.

With 3D Nature's Visual Nature Studio Version 3, and the right datasets and Foliage, you can create this image:

Mount Katahdin, Maine perspective with storm clouds over the highest point on the East Coast.  Click on the image (above).

Mount Katahdin, Maine perspective with storm clouds over the highest point on the East Coast.  Click on the image (above).

3D Nature’s landscape visualization, “World Construction Set”, was embraced by the gaming community in the 1990s; but was the inspiration of Gary Huber, … a geologist.  Gary’s vision came to life on the Amiga systems in the late 1980s, as it provided an affordable and programmable color palette not yet available on the Microsoft or IBM versions of the “personal computer”.  Because the color palette was “millions-of-colors” and “pixel programmable” to a memory buffer … as was Pixar’s pricier CHAPS color array on the Sun 3 systems, in the mid-1980s, … Gary’s vision of a “true-life environmental rendering tool” was developed on the affordable Amiga, the dream was embraced by the “geospatial community” for terrain rendering background images and animation; … so Gary’s “love of nature”, and realistic depictions of it, carried WCS into the world of design, engineering, GIS and 3D modeling, as an artist at heart.  Learn more about 3D Nature's history by clicking HERE.

After the release of “World Construction Set”, Version 5, 3D Nature integrated the General Cartographic Transformation Package (GCTP), originally authored by John Snyder of the USGS in Fortran, converted to C-code at the EROS Data Center; and now integrated into World Construction Set’s “big brother”: “Visual Nature Studio”, or VNS.  Version 3 of VNS was released in the summer of 2008.


3D Nature’s web site is http://www.3dnature.com/

"Three-dimensional thinking and analysis in the geospatial sciences: design, modeling and printing / framing for over 40 years.  I wrote my first Fortran 4 program on a IBM 360, with perforated paper tape, back in 1968 in The Hague, Netherlands.  When I came back to The States, all they taught was the mandatory typing class!  On to the University of Idaho for geography and computer mapping on a IBM 370 with card decks and Calcomp plotters with SYMVU, SYMAP and CALFORM, and shaded relief overprinted characters on line printers. At the National Geographic Society, Cartographic Division, I continued map assembly with quarterly Magazine inserts but learned shaded relief techniques from artist Tibor Toth, who hand painted, and his protege John Bonner, who airbrushed, and began painting map relief art at home by hand, in my spare time. At the Office of Research at U. S. Geological Survey under Dr. Joel Morrison, I helped convert manual cartography to digital processes with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and added research in GIScience with NCGIS and UCGIS. I am knowledgeable of the cartographic design, assembly processes, computers and software, used to build 3D models and generate large-format images and fly-through animations from large area environmental models … but now in retirement, I continue cartography as a hobby by processing and painting with the old and reliable digital brush, … a trackball."   Dave Catts