Ah, debate :-). If I may come back on a few things - and hopefully open
this up a little too.
The primary mission of G2 is to produce high-quality photo-realistic images
based on real-world (GIS) data.
We developed the system because we believe there is a requirement for
professional GIS users to produce such images using their own data in a
straightforward, simple and fast manner. We recognize that our target
market will need be using GenesisII as a 'plus' to their main business and
don't have time to learn and tune a complex system.
We've used WCS ourselves and it's an excellent program, but we feel that it
suffers because it tries to be all things to all users - is it a 3D
artists's tool or a scientific tool? Sure WCS allows you to set every
conceivable option under the sun, but it does so at the expense of a
difficult user interface and steep learning curve. That's not my opinion -
Computer Arts magazine (http://www.futurenet.com/arts/
<http://www.futurenet.com/arts/> magazine recently carried an in-depth
review in which the program scored very poorly in these areas). You can get
excellent results out of WCS, but it takes time and commitment - which is
possibly why there is no demo available on their site.
So I'd dispute that much of your comparison isn't relevant in the context of
what we're trying to do. For example, sure WCS has a vast array of
ecosystem settings, but we only added the equivalent because we felt it
necessary for our 'light' version aimed at the general (ex-Vistapro?) user.
Our target audience would be wanting to place a stand of trees 'here' and a
road 'there' and have the GIS data to back that up. GenesisII was built
from the ground up to do that. True this version has to import via MIF/SHP
files, but the code structure is already in place to use TAB files directly.
Furthermore the hooks are there to do database stuff in the way you suggest
and more (two-way for instance) We'll also be publishing a development SDK
for this in there near future so you can add your own interfaces. We think
we win on this one.
Finally image quality. This was the reason for publishing the 2.1 upgrade.
You say...
Both WCS & G2 are going to have to watch out for Terragen.
At this point
Terragen is still free (beer, not liberty) and the final
image quality far surpasses anything else I've seen so far.
G2 v2.1 uses the Terragen atmospheric model. Matt Fairclough (Terragen's
author) is part of the team who've contributed to GenesisII. So we stand by
our statement that GenesisII produces the most realistic images of any
commercial program.
For comparison we suggest you compare
http://www.questarproductions.com/images/GISWorld.jpg
<http://www.questarproductions.com/images/GISWorld.jpg> from WCS (which was
a GIS World front cover so presumably an image they're proud of) with
http://www.woolleysoft.co.uk/img/dee2.jpg
<http://www.woolleysoft.co.uk/img/dee2.jpg> or
http://www.woolleysoft.co.uk/img/dee1.jpg
<http://www.woolleysoft.co.uk/img/dee1.jpg> . Also we'd like to underline
the fields in our images. We're located in Europe and this kind of effect
is very important here as the vast majority of our landscapes have similar
features. Again GenesisII was built from the ground-up to do this with
minimal effort.
Kevin Woolley
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