3D Views In The Palm Of Your Hand

Israel-based, 3DVU announced today that it is making 3D imagery of map data available on PDA's, smartphones and other handhelds through its Visual Map technology. The system streams unlimited imagery, such as maps and displays them in perspective 3D view, including elevation data on mobile devices.

While there has been a lot publicity surrounding using other navigation systems such as Google Earth in automobiles, 3dVU says there is more potential for growth in handhelds. The firm says that by 2010 there will be four mobile navigation devices for every one car navigation system in use.

The firm says the limited computing power of handhelds was a major technical barrier to providing smooth continuous movements with 3D perspective over images in terrain elevation. So the firm developed patented technology that is platform independent, and thus can be integrated into any hardware and operating system. The technology will be demonstrated at the 3GSM World Congress, February 13-16, in Barcelona.