Poll: Do you use the 3D feature in charts?

[twistedtree]

Over the past few years all the chart vendors have come out with 3D as a feature in their chart plotters. I'm curious how much everyone actually uses that capability. Is it a transformational feature, or just a Pet Trick to make one brand stand out over another? Are Chart Plotter vendors really giving us more useful and more reliable tools, or just more complexity and more bugs?

The Poll choices are:

1) I find 3D chart viewing very useful and use it regularly

2) I find 3D chart viewing occasionally useful and use it once in a while

3) I got no use for it

[Paul L]

The only use for the 3D I've had is to see a little further chart distance on a relatively small screen. Use it very rarely.

[colemj]

My experience is exactly like Paul L's.

Mark

[twistedtree]

It would be great if some more people would respond to the poll. The results so far are what I expected, but too small a sampling to really say anything for sure.

[bobconnie]

Connie has it on her Puter with her Nav Program! but I don't think Ive ever seen it in use ! So I guess we are a 3 ?

[River Cruiser]

+1 don't use it

[David M]

I use it when towing a submerged instrument in water where there is a chance of the instrument hitting the bottom or I want to show people some eye candy. Otherwise no.

[bob_77903]

Have it, rarely if ever use it...

[conachair]

Don't have it, but prob wouldn't be too bothered about having 3d underwater.

3d google earth, well that *is* a useful thing to have onboard

In a hilly place anyway.

[zeehag]

i chose the garmin i chose because i can get cheaper chats for it than for the new 3-d ones. i like what i have. my garmin also has a built in ais feature if i wish to use it...is a nmea hook up deal. mebbe i will mebbe i wont--tbd.

[cfarrar]

3) No. My plotter can do it, but I prefer to buy the cheaper chips.

[twistedtree]

Wow, pretty interesting poll results. The total number of respondents is still small, but what a consistent and unmistakable message it delivers.

I too have no use for 3D, and am sure it has dragged a bunch of bugs into our nav systems along with it. I'd much rather see the various vendors spending their developent effort on fixing bugs so we have more error-free operation, perfecting support for N2K, and generally delivering robust and dependable gear.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by twistedtree

Wow, pretty interesting poll results. The total number of respondents is still small, but what a consistent and unmistakable message it delivers.

I too have no use for 3D, and am sure it has dragged a bunch of bugs into our nav systems along with it. I'd much rather see the various vendors spending their developent effort on fixing bugs so we have more error-free operation, perfecting support for N2K, and generally delivering robust and dependable gear.

I think the genie is out of the bottle. Now every vendor has to have 3d on their marketing list to be considered viable and state-of-the-art.

[Lucky Larry]

Unfortunately, this gives the impression that 3D is not usefull. The problem is that I don't care what it might look like if I were 500-1,000 feet in the air behind my boat. If the 3D image was a fair representation of what I'm seeing from the helm but with all of the pertinent data overlayed and the depths shown, then I would use it frequently. I have a lot of experience in using two dimensional data to generate 3D scenes and the feature found on marine chart plotters has a long way to go.


LuckyLarry

[JayCall]

Like everybody else, I have not found that the 3-D adds anything useful information that I don't already have readily available. The only potential use seems to me to be to determine bottom slope, primarily in narrrow channels, but then it still is based on the same charts I see in 2-D, so it just has no added value to me. When I have tried it, I find it a bit confusing, requring more visual attention to the sceen rather than on the water.