The Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) has become the first US user of Virtalis’ GeoVisionary landscape visualising software. In addition to the initial order for five floating licences, the ISGS has installed a 4.8 m x 2.7 m screen as part of a high-resolution StereoWorks VR suite. GeoVisionary was developed in collaboration with the British Geological Survey (BGS) and will be used by the survey for its new Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability (INRS) Earth Systems Visualisation Laboratory.

“GeoVisionary is simply stunning in its ability to visualise and interpret massive spatial datasets”, commented Bruce Napier, Project Leader, BGS Virtual Field Reconnaissance. Version 1 of GeoVisionary was released last year and Version 1.1, featuring a 3D GUI along with a host of more technical features, is expected to be available by the summer. The sale coincides with Virtalis’ expansion in the US and the opening of its Ohio office.

The ISGS, a division of the INRS at the University of Illinois, employs around 170 people over a range of geologic disciplines. It is one of the largest and most technologically advanced of all the US state surveys. Over ten years ago, the survey decided to expand its detailed geological mapping program with a goal of developing a fully-computerised, 3D mapping program.

Don Keefer, Director of the ISGS’ Geologic Mapping and Hydrogeology Center, explained: “Over the past few years, we developed a modular software solution to managing our 3D mapping efforts. We have developed new logistical and data management solutions and identified several modelling packages that meet our needs. We also needed software that could provide high-resolution visualisation of common earth-science data types over the large range in spatial scales in which we work. Most high-resolution visualisation applications load everything into RAM and cannot manage large projects. Applications that can handle the large data sets typically provide degraded rendering quality, or they provide limited support for the data types we use. GeoVisionary was developed to view a wide range of earth science data types. It provides high-resolution 3D and 3D stereo visualisation that is limited only by the resolution of the data. It is highly scalable and is able to provide ‘fly-through’ viewing of mid-continent-scale data sets at full speed. In addition, Virtalis has built linkages between GeoVisionary and ArcGIS, allowing for dynamic updating between the two software packages.

“We are using GeoVisionary as the 3D and stereo visualisation software for our new INRS Earth Systems Visualisation Laboratory. The software pulls disparate mapping data together under one high-resolution 3D visualisation environment, integrates dynamically with a suite of custom tools we’ve already developed for use with ArcGIS and works with logistical and data management solutions already in place. With GeoVisionary and the opening of the INRS Earth Systems Visualisation Laboratory on the University of Illinois campus, we are able to provide a host of high-resolution visualisation and analysis solutions to a range of earth science research applications.”