Vista and Vista Pro are 3D landscape generation programs originally for the

Commodore Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

/ Microsoft Windows (PC) range of home computers. It was written by John Hinkley, and its own

About box The dialog box (also called dialogue box (non-U.S. English), message box or simply dialog) is a graphical control element in the form of a small window that communicates information to the user and prompts them for a response. Dialog boxes are ...

describes it as "''a 3-D landscape generator and projector capable of accurately displaying real-world and

fractal landscapes A fractal landscape is a surface that is generated using a stochastic algorithm designed to produce fractal behavior that mimics the appearance of natural terrain. In other words, the result of the procedure is not a deterministic fractal surfac ...

.''" It was published by Virtual Reality Labs and developed by Hypercube Engineering. The latest versions were published and developed by Monkey Byte Development.

Graphics Generation

Vista operates similarly to a ray tracer in that light paths are generated. The user specifies light sources, and camera angles. The ground may be colored to create different ground styles. Vista has water, tree and cloud effects, making some images almost

photorealistic Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

. The ground itself may either be generated from a random (or user inputted) number, or it may use

DEM DEM was the ISO 4217 currency code for the Deutsche Mark, former currency of Germany Computing * Digital elevation model, a digital representation of ground-surface topography or terrain ** .dem, a common extension for USGS DEM files * Discret ...

landscape files for real-world views, the software having come with a number of maps of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

and

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. Vista can load and save output images in

PCX PCX, standing for ''PiCture eXchange'', was an image file format developed by the now-defunct ZSoft Corporation of Marietta, Georgia, United States. It was the native file format for PC Paintbrush and became one of the first widely accepted DOS ...

, BMP, JPG and

Targa Targa or TARGA may refer to: Car racing events * Targa Adelaide, in Australia * Targa Canada West, in British Columbia *Targa Florio, in Sicily, Italy, 1906–1977 * Targa Florio Rally, in Sicily, Italy, from 1978 * Targa High Country, in Victori ...

file formats. PCX files can also be imported as elevations and ground colors to allow third-party creation of landscapes in other image editors. Trees can be placed on landscapes as either 2D or 3D objects. In 2D, the trees always face the camera and are fast to generate. 3D trees are created using fractals and can be given a variable bending of the branches to make them look more complicated.

Releases

For the

: *Vista v1.00 *Vista v1.20 (1990, reviewed by Amiga Format issue 15, released on cover disk of Amiga Format issue 33) *Vista v1.21 (PAL, 1991) *VistaPro v1.0 (released in 1991) *VistaPro v1.022 PAL (1991-07-09) *VistaPro v2.02 (released in 1992) *VistaPro v3.0 (released in 1993 with

AGA Aga or AGA may refer to: Business * Architectural Glass and Aluminum (AGA), a glazing contractor, established in 1970 * AGA (automobile), ''Autogen Gasaccumulator AG'', 1920s German car company *AGA AB, ''Aktiebolaget Svenska Gasaccumulator'', a ...

support) *VistaLite v3.01 (version for smaller memory Amiga computers) *VistaPro v3.3b *VistaPro v3.04b *VistaPro v3.05 *VistaPro v3.10o (unreleased) For

and Microsoft Windows: *VistaPro v1.0 (released in 1992, MS-DOS) *VistaPro v3.0 (released in 1993, MS-DOS) *VistaPro v3.05 (released in 1993, MS-DOS) *VistaPro v3.12 (released in 1994, Windows) *VistaPro v4.00 (released in 1997) *VistaPro v4.11 *VistaPro v4.2.4 (released in 2004) *VistaPro Renderer v4.2 (released in 2004) For

: *VistaPro v1.08 (released in 1991) *VistaPro v3.00 (1995) *VistaPro v4.00 (2005)

Compatibility

The Amiga version of Vista works on all models of Amiga, however due to the low processor speeds generation of landscapes take a long time to complete. It was not unusual for a landscape generation to take several hours on a stock

68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Secto ...

based computer. Later versions, for 32-bit Amigas, support the MC68881/68882 FPU, speeding up rendering considerably when such a chip is present. The PC version runs in

for the earlier versions, and from 4.00 onwards it runs on all versions of 32-bit Microsoft Windows.

Popular culture

Its most famous use was for the landscape used in the opening credits of

The Chart Show ''The Chart Show'' (also known as ''The ITV Chart Show'' between 1989 and 1998) was a popular weekly syndicated music video programme which ran in the United Kingdom from April 1986 until August 1998, with revivals in 2003 and 2008–2009. ''T ...

. This sequence involved a silver spaceship flying through a series of valleys that had been generated using VistaPro (Vista didn't support generating animations until the Pro version was released). Vista was also used (both PC and Amiga versions) for the book by Arthur C. Clarke called "The Snows of Olympus", a picture book about terraforming Mars. The 1994 album "Landscapes" by the Susumu Hirasawa's experimental group

Shun Shun may refer to one of the following: *To shun, which means avoiding association with an individual or group * Shun (given name), a masculine Japanese given name *Seasonality in Japanese cuisine (''shun'', 旬) Emperor Shun * Emperor Shun (� ...

was inspired by and used images created in the software.

Notes and references

External links

VistaPro 4.11 ReviewReview
in

Shadis ''Shadis'' is an independent gaming magazine that was published in 1990–1998 by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). It initially focused on role-playing games. Publication history Shadis was conceived and started by Jolly Blackburn as an indepe ...