Images are arranged on virtual 3D walls and can be viewed as if it were an exhibition in the physical world. Lit and compiled, such galleries can be distributed to other people, who can use their PCs to take a virtual walk around the rooms to admire your work.

The concept behind Image Armada according to George Kilibarda, Image Armada author, is to bring the gallery experience direct to your computer. "All existing presentation builders restrict our visual sensations to flat, two-dimensional albums," says Mr. Kilibarda. "Image Armada lets you go 3D and create a virtual gallery, which is so real, that you believe in its space, in a realm beyond the screen. You feel as if you had pulled yourself through the screen and into this realm. The best thing is that you can share this excitement with other people. You can hang family photos within a gallery and send a CD with them to your relatives. Or, as an artist, you can compile your own work into a gallery and forward it to prospective customers."

Image Armada comes as two programs - a gallery builder and viewer. The builder enables you to create new galleries or edit existing ones, which you have already created. To build a new gallery, you need to select a suitable gallery template. Then, moving around the gallery rooms, you should choose hanging places and hang your artwork there. In doing this you can adjust lightning within the gallery, change the wall paper, set the background music, add an audio narrative for each piece of artwork and set the outdoor environment. You can also adjust the gallery room layout, selecting the rooms and objects you want to be shown within this gallery.

A virtual gallery, created in Image Armada, can be explored as if it were a real one. To admire its beauty, you need to open the gallery in the viewer program, which is included in the Image Armada package. Then, using a mouse and keyboard, you can walk around the rooms, turn your head in any direction, view artwork and associated details and listen to the background music. If you want to share its beauty with other people, you can package the gallery up and burn onto a CD or DVD along with a self-contained 3D viewer. For distribution over the internet, you can create a single executable program, which contains all the files moulded as one installer file.

Image Armada Pricing and Availability

Image Armada runs under Windows 98/Me/2000/XP. The program is distributed in two editions - Image Armada Standard, $25 (USD), and Image Armada Pro, $55 (USD). Registered customers are entitled to free updates and lifetime technical support. Additional information on Image Armada as well as its demo version is available from http://www.tangent3d.co.uk.