Seeker

Reviewed by Ted Bade

Software Bisque

912 Twelfth Street Golden, CO 80401 USA Production Facility: 900 Washington Avenue Golden, CO 80401 USA Software Bisque Observatory: 9356 Blue Mountain Drive Golden, CO 80403 USA Sales: (800) 843-7599 International: (303) 278-4478 Fax: (303) 278-0045 http://www.bisque.com/ $99 USD (currently they have a special buy both the Sky X and Seeker for $149) Requirements: 1.25 GHz G4 PowerPC or faster processor or a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo or faster processor;512 MB of internal RAM; OpenGL 2.0 and later; Macintosh OS X version 10.4.8 or later; NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 series or better graphics card-or-ATI Radeon 9600 or better graphics card; 128 MB (minimum) video RAM; 2.5 GB free disc space; DVD drive; Mouse or other pointing device; Keyboard.   Strengths: Easy to use, great graphics and flight simulations, includes some professional quality demos. Weaknesses: Navigation can be confusing, no internet space to share tours created by owners.   For information on Seeker - http://www.bisque.com/help/Seeker/SeekerInfo.htm

 

Seeker is a solar system exploration program from Software Bisque. It can be used to simulate a flight (at very fast speeds) to almost any object in our solar system. You can enjoy a visual visit to the International space station, the moon, Mars or any other planet, and just about any other major object you can think of in our solar system. If you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to fly across the solar system, this program is for you!

 

 

Seeker’s interface is a lot like Their Sky X for students we reviewed last month. Except in this case, rather then viewing the night sky from the earth, this program excels in letting you travel to and view various solar system objects. Controls are geared to “flying” your space shuttle. There is a large viewport window showing the view from your virtual ship. A side bar offers easy access to controls, which can also be accessed from the regular application menus.

 

The best way to see how Seeker works is to sit back and enjoy several of the many very nicely done presentations that come with this application. You’ll notice an “(M)” after some of the presentations, these are multimedia presentations that include sound in the form of voice and or music. All of the included presentations were very well done and enjoyable. The music and the voice description are what one would expect when visiting a professional planetarium.

 

Seeker would be valuable enough with just these presentations. However, the user can also to create his or her own a virtual flight around the solar system in real time. (Luckily, the speeds at which you virtually travel are a lot faster then currently possible, so you won’t have to wait 6 months to get to Mars!)

 

There are two ways to navigate. You can search for an object by name, then a fly or jump to that object. In the fly to, you seem to travel to the object. This is a lot of fun. Jump to is quicker, but just puts the object in front of you, plopping the object at a distance good for viewing. Once near an object, you can use the program’s controls to fly around to any position near the object. Sorry, there are no features for actually landing on the surface of any object, this program allows only space flight views.

 

Obviously, most of the imagery of this program is computer simulated, although it is derived from actual data gained from telescopes and spacecraft. The imagery is very realistic, I couldn’t imagine it looking any more real. The quality of the graphics makes for some truly breath-taking scenes! Imagine, finding a position orbiting the moon where you can see the Earth behind it? Or perhaps the view of our sun while orbiting Pluto. All this and more are easily achieved in this program. Use your imagination.

 

In addition to being able to take a trip yourself, the program also has the ability to record a trip. Giving the user ability to make a movie of your flight or even a tour that works within Seeker.

 

 

Working with tours isn’t terribly hard, although it does involve a little script-like programming. There is a window that opens that helps build the script and later lets you edit it. I could see a lot of use for this feature in the classroom where students can present information about objects in the solar system. Additionally, it could be used by a teacher to present information in a fun way. The video and the graphics effects are really great. You really feel like you are there visually! The one thing I would have liked to do with Seeker would be to watch the presentations on a large projection screen! Creating a movie is as easy as creating a tour, then clicking on create movie and the program makes a movie. Simple.

 

Using the example in the manual, I was quickly able to make a trip to Jupiter. This is very basic. The program includes a number of commands that give the user the ability to add a lot of pizazz to their script. I didn’t take a lot of time to try this out myself. But based on the really cool multimedia tours that are included, it is obvious the tours cane be quite complex and entertaining!

 

I should also mention that Seeker can shift time as well as location. This is useful if you would like to see some event that has happened in the past or something that won’t happen for many years. If you know the date of some important event in space, you can shift to that time.

 

 

Seeker contains several audio clips that one can play as you use the program. The music is all pretty nice and what I call “Planetarium Music”. (I might add that I am a big fan of this type of music!) You can select a sound clip to play anytime you run the program or choose to have no music. Seeker also allows you to play your own music. I am not really sure what type of “your own music” Seeker can play. It won’t play any MP3 music in my library. The sample music provided in the program are wave files. A reference in the scripting information indicates that one can play a CD from a script. But there is no reference as to what type of music is required.

 

 

While flying your ship is easy, I found navigation to be a bit of a challenge. The solar system is a big place, and dealing with three dimensions can be a challenge (four if you consider time as well). To make navigations as easy as possible, directions are all based on your ship. Which is to say your view of space. One you get the hang of it, it becomes a lot easier.

 

I ran into no problems as all running this program on my MacPro. This program really benefits from a large screen and good audio, which makes the rumble of the engines come to life!

 

I was hoping that the Software Bisque site might have a place to post tours that people create. It would make for a great sharing community. (Anyone remember the old Hypercard and Hyperstudio stacks? That was a great community that truly shared!) But alas, I couldn’t find a place to download other people’s tours, sigh.

Overall Seeker is a lot of fun, while being very educational. It gives the Astronomy dreamer the ability to see what it would like to fly to all parts of our solar system. The views are terrific. Not only can one experience the flight themselves, but they can also save the flight, and allow others to enjoy it as well. This is a fun product and would be a great addition to any young astronomer’s directory of programs.