Go 3D With DD

The only thing that ever gave me second thoughts about the BBC Micro in favour of the Spectrum was Psion's Vu-3D graphics package. Up to now there has been no really good equivalent - the nearest thing has been Micad3, but that is part of a package costing over £20.

Now, however, we have just as good a program for the BBC Micro and at only £8.95 for the cassette version.

Interactive 3D from Design Dynamics allows you to con struct 3D wireframe drawings which can be viewed in either plain first angle orthographic projection or in perspective - one screen displays both together, very useful.

Any of the orthographic views, front and side elevations and plan, can be seen individually, and the perspective view can be rotated to be seen from any angle.

There are some clever points to this program. You can zoom into or out of whichever view is on screen in order to do some fine point positioning.

Vu-3D on the Spectrum rotates the object very quickly indeed, making full use of its 48k. Interactive 3D is slower, but allows quick positioning by a simple trick - the three axes X, Y and Z can be displayed at any time and you can rotate them alone very quickly.

When they are in the correct alignment a function key press causes the full object to be redrawn in the new attitude.

The program is great fun. It is claimed to be very user friendly but I would disagree somewhat. No system of 3D drawing is child's play, it requires thought and patience. This program uses the cursor keys cleverly to allow you to reach a desired point anywhere on the object very quickly. Pressing fO acquires it and it can then be manipulated positively or negatively in any of the three axes by keys f4-f9.

This requires a bit of getting used to, but is effective when you get the hang of it.

Extensive use is made of all possible function key combi nations and the result is a fascinating program which, after a bit of hard work at first, fully lives up to the claims made for it.

Terry Hallard