Why spend good money watching breathtaking views of mountain tops and canyon walls in IMAX 3D, when you can do it for free in Google Earth. All it takes is a little know how. It's quite simple but takes a bit of getting used to.

 To begin, you, ahem, need to be in Google Earth. The Vancouver, British Columbia area is as good a place as any to start. Vancouver is on the west coast of North America inside Vancouver Island sitting near the border between the United states and Canada. Vancouver is lined with big mountains on its north side sitting right off the water, which will do nicely to get you going.

Start by rotating the Earth ball in Google Earth until North America is sitting level in the middle of your screen and the Vancouver area is in the middle of the view. Use your mouse to expand the view until both Vancouver and North Vancouver are clearly labelled in Google Earth.

Just above North Vancouver you will see a lighted area with two white patches of snow covered mountains. Both mountains are covered with ski slopes. Vancouverites are born and bred into skiing.

The left side patch is the patented Cypress Mountain skiing area for skiing wimps. The right side is the famous Grouse Mountain ski area for skiing yuppies. Whistler Mountain, far to the north, is for both gung ho skiers and yuppies.

Just above Grouse Mountain is a larger patch consisting of a group of three Mountain peaks. Two of the peaks are visible from downtown Vancouver as the world famous 'Lions', hence Vancouver's famous 'Lions Gate' Bridge and a bunch of other touristy things, not forgetting that this is all scarcely more than a stone's throw from downtown Vancouver.

The three peaks are marked by three green triangles. Pick the center peak marker and expand it until the other two have expanded off screen. You should be at just about right amount of magnification to start the 3D effect. Use your mouse to give the view a slight tug one way or the other to get the view scrolling slowly across the screen. It doesn't matter in which direction you scroll it, all directions work the same.

Once it starts scrolling, watch the peaks and crags pop suddenly into remarkable full IMAX type 3D view as though flying overhead in a helicopter. It's not hard to do, just a bit tricky to get it going the first time until you have it.

Once you have it going, give the screen a bit of a tug one way or another to get it scrolling in a different direction. Expand or reduce the view a mouse click or two to change the perspective.

You might have to play with it a bit. If the view is not expanded enough it won't start scrolling. If it's too much, it will scroll faster and faster, and then revert into Google Earth's patented horizontal surface level view mode and you'll have to exit the view and start all over.

  If you hit the right combination of expansion and speed of scroll just right, the terrain will roll across your screen in perfect 3D, all done courtesy of your brains' real time internal processing capability and having nothing to do with anything Google Earth may be in and of itself doing. Psychologists should be drooling over this one.

If the scrolling is too slow, the 3D effect will be minimal. If too fast your brain won't process the information properly and all you'll  see is a big blur going by. If the vertical terrain is not sufficient enough you won't see much difference from the original view. But if it is, hang onto your hat because you're in for an mind boggling  ride.

Once you get it, you've got it, and thus forever have it and the world is your oyster. Check out any mountainous area in the world. Or any interesting scene like the grand Canyon, or anywhere that piques your curiosity.

The procedure is not patent. It is simply a matter of getting everything just right.  I'm pretty sure that your computer will probably have a bit to do with what is 'just right' for you too. Do what works for you. Like anything, practice makes perfect. Once you get jiggy with it, watch Google Earth turn into the executive toy of the century.

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Cliff Livingstone is an entrepreneurial and peripatetic retiree now living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Livingstone is both the creator and developer of this website www.perfrd.com. Check it out, many good things. He is also co-producer of the revelatory website www.revelatorium.com. Among other things, the Revelatorium presents for the very first time ever the original Intelligent Design of the Creators by which all of Creation has been blueprinted and expressed.

The design is dirt simple, comprising only a cube, a sphere, and twelve straight lines. The three elements have been hidden in plain view for many millennia as that called a cubit.

(c) Cliff Livingstone, Canada, 2012.