VIRTUAL RED SEA
Underwater World - Red Sea, DVD-rom, divingsoft
Underwater World - Red Sea
(DiComp, www.divingsoft.com),
DVD-Rom,£24.99
Guides on DVD-Rom, like CD-Rom, are great if you have a computer handy and a certain amount of time to spare. Otherwise a good reference book may prove both more portable and easier to use.
The software developers have obviously put a lot work into Underwater World. The Red Sea edition is intended to be the first of several, with even perhaps a UK version on the horizon, as well as updates for existing products.
You get an impression of just how much data must be contained as you go through the time-consuming process of uploading all 800Mb onto your hard disk.
The heart of the product is the encyclopaedia, where you can zoom in on 130 maps showing 400 dive sites, 20 of the best-known including 3D models on which you can plot profiles, move components around and so on.
The species identifier is also impressive, with 1800 creatures listed. Swap between English and Latin names, check out the pictures and find out through the graphics where sea biscuits are found, the dangers they pose, how big they grow, at what time of day they are active and so on.
There are 22,000 images and 650 videos on the DVD, though I couldn't get the videos to work. I also had trouble escaping from the virtual dives, which are intended to give you a taster of a dive site.
There is a handy logbook that interacts with the other elements, a tide predictor and a star, sky and navigation facility. The software is generally intuitive, though you will probably keep finding new aspects to enjoy if you don't read through the manual first.
This software may prove useful for Red Sea dive centres, but what the market is among individual divers I'm not sure. Using it for planning trips and debriefing yourself on your return as the makers suggest could be frustrating - if you're going to use it, you may be better off loading it onto a laptop and taking it with you. Or take a guide-book, of course.
This product is compatible with Windows 2000/XP and uses 256Mb of operating memory. |
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