A FAVOURITE website of mine is the Géoportail mapping service that lets you fly over France taking a look at different towns, cities and the wonders of nature
It is similar to Google Maps, but excels when looking at places in the countryside because the level of detail appears to be better.
But one thing it lacked was a 3D option that would let you zoom in on areas as if you were flying in a small aircraft, until now.
A test version has been launched that lets you look at some of the most famous regions of France such as the Alps and the Puy du Dome from a completely new perspective, letting you “fly” around Mont Blanc for example.
It is similar to Google Earth, in that you have to download a small piece of software which then renders the images giving you the chance to take a relief view of features and change your altitude so you can swoop off a mountainside into a village.
One of the features the 3D Géoportail also lets you do is lay other maps over hillsides, so you can see regular road maps and cadastral details in relation to the underlying terrain.
At the moment it is only available for Windows machines and it will ask much of your computer so if it is showing its age then you might well struggle, and I’m afraid it is only suitable for those people with broadband access.
The thumbnail image above is of The Grand Colombier in 3D, click it for a full size view.