GenesisIV is a photorealistic landscape renderer

Rendering (computer graphics)

Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...

 program made by Geomantics Ltd. of Balquhidder

Balquhidder

Balquhidder is a small village in the Stirling council area of Scotland. It is overlooked by the dramatic mountain terrain of the Braes of Balquhidder, at the head of Loch Voil. Balquhidder Glen is also popular for fishing, nature watching and walking...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

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GenesisIV is similar to Terragen

Terragen

Terragen is a scenery generator program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X developed and published by Planetside Software. It can be used to create renderings and animations of landscapes.-History:...

 in that it uses an atmosphere lighting model, but differs in that this trades off some sophistication so that it can be implemented in hardware using OpenGL

OpenGL

OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...

 shader

Shader

In the field of computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that is used primarily to calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility...

s. GenesisIV also places a stronger emphasis on landscape visualization for GIS

Geographic Information System

A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...

 and Educational use than for pure Computer Graphics

Computer graphics

Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....

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