With this tool and only installing the free “TerraExplorer Viewer”, you will be able to simulate the flight on a 3-D virtual view over the Aragón territory.

This view has been created from the maps and the aerial photographies used for professional work on cartography by the Territorial Information and Documentation Centre of the Government of Aragón.

Before starting …

… it is necessary to install the program which allows to surf the 3-D virtual view of Aragón. You can download and install the viewer “TerraExplorer” from the following link:

Click on this link to download the 3-D viewer.

More information about the viewer can be obteined here


Recommendations

Be patient, the initial upload can take several seconds. The program for viewing needs to download from the server the 3-D structure of the territory and it will place subsequently on it the aerial photographies while you are flying. The time it takes to upload the setting and the photographies depends much on the speed of access to the Internet you have.

Use initially the mode of simple flying, selecting this icon , it is easier to use and it will allow you to move in all directions moving the mouse while keeping the left button pressed. You can also have access to this type of flying keeping the mouse roulette pressed.

Turning the mouse roulette forward or backward we get near or move away. If we turn the roulette while we keep the Control key (CTRL) pressed, our height goes up or down.

Due to the scale used, it is advisable to fly over 1500 metres height in order to handle the view of all Aragón. In the province capitals, this height can be reduced without decreasing the image quality (the detail of resolutions is indicated in the section about the model characteristics).

In the “expert ways” of virtual flight, you can press to control by hand the flying and to have extra information about altitude, slope, direction, etc.

If you press F9 there appears a window which allows you to modify the “ Size of the disk Cache “. This size is the one used to store temporarily images in the computer disk and prevents, when flying again over an area we passed before, having to upload the images from Internet. Large sizes of the “cache” improve the speed to visualize the model.

Press the button of ayuda (help) and discover new options to use the program.

 

Starting the 3-D virtual flight

There are three ways of access to the virtual flight:

Basic way. The viewer is embeded in the Internet browser and has basic and simple controls to make the virtual flight.It only works with the Microsoft browser Internet Explorer. Flash Player must be installed and the licenses execute the controls ActiveX.

Press here to start the flight in the basic way

Expert way. The viewer used is the standard program “TerraExplorer Viewer “ which has more options and functions to use.

Press here to start the flight in the expert way.

Expert way (polygonal model). The viewer used is the same standard program “TerraExplorer Viewer “ as before. The difference is that it offers a bit more image quality, requiring more features mainly from the computer graphics card.

Press here to start the flight in the expert way (polygonal model)

 

Characteristics of the model

The combination of information used to obtain a virtual model, manageable from Internet, without any requirement of high cost technical infrastructures, have been the following:

Aerial photography

Capital of provinces

Huesca      0.5 meter resolution orthophoto.

Teruel       0.5 meter resolution orthophoto.

Zaragoza   1 meter resolution orthophoto (it has been used a lower resolution, but using the most recent orthophoto available (February 2006).

Rest of Aragón 2 meter resolution orthophoto..

Digital Terrain Model  20 meters resolution.

 

Minimum requirements recommended

Even though the system can work with less features, it is advisable to access from a system with the following minimum characteristics:

- Operating system: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me/XP

- Memory: 256 MB of Ram minimum

- Graphics card: 64 MB minimum

- Internet connection: it is advisable a 512 KB RDSI or 1MB ADSL connection minimum.