Terrain Analysis Package (TAP) Radio Propagation Software

3D Display Module TM

For TAP for Windows W2K/XP

Turn your engineering design excellence into powerful presentations.

Real world coverage is shown in the real world. Your radio coverage area is not flat. Why show it that way?

Better visualize your radio coverage challenges. You know where you have coverage problems. Show others why.

Intuitively communicate how terrain helps or hurts your coverage area.

Help your customers visualize real coverage problems.

Show zoning boards why a particular transmitter site is superior or inferior to others.

Show your advertisers how well you really cover the market.

Left control bar and graphic panel are displayed simultaneously.

View the demo video

The 3D Display Module is a powerful presentation tool, which will allow you to plot topography and superimpose received field strength over the surface. It is fully integrated into TAP and requires no file conversion or complicated configuration to combine the field strength over the graphics and the topography. You calculate coverage just as in the past, but now you can make stunning presentations of your results.

The 3D surface can be plotted as a wire frame or as a solid surface. There are many options for lighting of the surface from various angles to produce a very realistic 3D image. You first prepare an elevation grid file and calculate your coverage map in TAP and then the calculated results are then displayed in the software.

Any scanned map or photographic image may be geo-referenced and then overlaid onto the 3D topography. Overlay graphics such as satellite photos or aerial photographs may be used. Boundary files can also be plotted on the surface. For regions within the United States, the 3D Display module will download from the Internet, automatically geo-reference and overlay USGS topographic maps on to the terrain graphic at no additional cost. These topographic map image files can also be printed.

You can colorize the terrain surface with gradations of field strength from transmitter sites. When plotting in 3D the z value need not be the elevation. It can actually be the field strength. That will allow you to plot a 3D surface of received field strength over your geographic area. Topographic map graphics can still be overlaid over this plot to identify the location of either high or low field strength.

The left panel of the 3DD window lists the major control functions for the software and each is expanded as you click on them to perform the desired actions. This gives you access to all the control capabilities while viewing the graphic.

Control the orientation, size, rotation, position and viewing angle of the graphic.
Save images to BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, or TIFF formats which can then be used in other applications such as Microsoft Word(tm) or Excel(tm).
Utilizes hardware-based graphics acceleration for ultra-fast drawing.
Automatically generates a legend based on data ranges, which can be positioned on the image.
Print preview function lets you preview and then return to the document for continued editing prior to printing.

For those TAP systems that are configured to calculate rf coverage using one or more of the TAP propagation modules the 3DD module also provides the capability to create exported coverage files that can be plotted directly in Google Maps. For more details click here.

This is an example of radio coverage calculated in TAP and plotted on a map generated by Google Maps.

Check out the FAQs for the more operational details of the 3D Display Module

With the 3D Display Module in your TAP system, you have the power of a strong presentation tool to better communicate the merits of your particular radio system design.

Minimum Hardware Recommendations
Windows W2K/XP with 256 MB ram minimum. Both Microsoft DirectX and .NET must be installed. (Note: Windows 95 and NT are not supported.)
700 MHz Pentium minimum (with graphical hardware acceleration supporting DirectX version 9 is also required)
Approximately 1.0 GB disk space minimum
CD-Rom drive

Because TAP performs intensive engineering calculations, more ram and increased processor speed will be beneficial.

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Download Complete TAP Demo Software (approximately 300 MB)