OVER 2 YOU 225 (05/04/05)

AERIAL VIEWS

Does anyone know of a website where you can enter, for example, a place name or grid reference (in the UK) in order to get an aerial view of that region? The facility must be free to use and preferably have a zoom capability.

Stuart Francis, via email

Have a look at www.multimap.com; they give maps, directions and aerial photos. You can enter the postcode, street name, or grid reference of a place for the centre of a picture.  Postcodes are quickest.  They offer you a low or high resolution of your area as a preview, which you can copy and paste to a graphics program. The low-resolution image is still pretty good; I can make out my car in my drive on the one I printed. There is no zoom as such, but they offer different area sizes to choose from ranging from 0.5 x 0.5km up to 10km x 10km. The site is not very intuitive but 10 minutes playing with it gets you where you want to be. It's all free, unless you want to buy a framed print for your wall.

Malcolm Youd, via email

For aerial photos try: www.old-maps.co.uk. This site will take OS co-ordinates or place names and will show you an old map of the area c 1880/90. However, when on the page showing the old map there is a button for a recent aerial photo, centered on the town or village and it’s all free

Mike Day, via email

Google is trialling a new service called Keyhole, which is a huge database of aerial and satellite imagery from around the world. Currently the UK images are limited to just a few areas but they provide a resolution down to just 0.7 metres. There’s a 7-day free trial at: www.keyhole.com/

Ashley Kent, via email

INCLINED TO WALK

I am in the process of compiling a set of walks and would like to include a profile of the rise and fall of the terrain covered, to give an indication of the severity of the climbs and descents from start to finish: the final product to look like a single line graph with miles for the ‘X’ axis and height for the ‘Y’ axis.  I have looked, thus far without success, through many internet sites for software that will allow me to click on the points where the route crosses the contour lines on the map to produce the chart I require. Can anyone help?

Jim Cumberbatch.

Anquet Maps (www.anquet.co.uk) produce PC software, which allows a route to be drawn on an Ordnance Survey map, and then the vertical profile of the route to be displayed on screen or printed.  If you have a GPS, which allows upload/download from PC, the route can then be downloaded to the GPS, or an existing route uploaded from GPS to find out where you've

Been, again with the facility to produce a vertical profile plot.

James Lavery, Emsworth, Hants

The web site www.memory-map.co.uk has the facility to produce 'profiles' of a route. This can be an actual walk or you can use it to see if features are within line of site of each other (taking into account tall trees, etc). Combined with the ability to save and export the route as a series of waypoints to a GPS device or map to a PDA and to create contour based mapping views and print portions of the map and calculate walking times, I think it should cover most of what Jim requires.

R. F. Carey, via email

Have a look at a piece of free software from: www.dgadv.com/dgtv/. From here you can

download the corresponding NASA 3 Arcsec SRTM data files and images for the relevant latitudes and longitudes and then import the trails on top. Hopefully a resolution of 90m is sufficient for your correspondent’s purposes.

Zebedee Mason, via email

Jim Cumberbatch should visit the Fugawi UK web site (www.fugawi.com), which uses data based on the UK Ordnance Survey.  He can plot his route on a map, when that’s done display the route properties then click on the elevation chart to show the route profile. The route and map can be downloaded to a PDA and used with or without GPS.

Peter G Williams, via email

PLAYWARE

Does anyone know of any software or a website, which can help someone to write plays for TV or radio in the correct format, setting out how to present dialogue, scene details, movements and so on.

Roslyn Ousey, via email

Having had a need for such templates before (but not used them myself), a swift Google returned several useful looking sites including:

http://home.sprynet.com/~palermo/mtr_rd15.htm. This one offers a potted

history on radio scripts, which should keep any budding author occupied for a little while.

Roger Whiteley, via email

If your correspondent is using a Mac (OSX) then have a look at

www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/

productivity_tools/. There are 5 or 6 packages on offer, which look very promising (who says the Mac doesn't have any software?).

Matt Whillock, via email

CAN YOU HELP?

I have been trying my hand at bidding on items on ebay but so far without any success. My bid always seems to be trumped in the last few moments before the auction ends. I’ve heard that a lot of bidders are using software to automatically pace their bids. Can anyone recommend one of these programs, preferably free or low cost, and indicate where it may be obtained from?

William Bennet, via email

Over the years I have been a frequent air traveller and on rare occasions, fortunate to have a seat in First Class and Business Class and I’m always impressed by the comfort of the seating. Given that old aircraft are constantly being scrapped, does anyone know of a web site or company selling old aircraft seats (preferably First or Business Class types), and if it would be possible to convert them to normal living room use?

Peter Harris, via email