I would like to use Balloon to create a 3D visualization of a landscape, but
I have no idea where to start ( I am really a novice in the 3D world -;).
I understand how 2D landscape data (polygons, arcs, vertices) are
represented, used and manipulated in GIS, and I know how to create an
object-representation of these in Smalltalk (reading large files in standard
Arc\Info formats). I suppose 3D data can be imported in a comparable way
into Balloon, with an added z-coordinate for each vertex - or am I wrong? 
Would it be easy to feed Balloon data in a GIS-like format, and display them
directly? Would it be possible the create the 3D representation inside
Balloon, on the basis of 2 D GIS data, or would it be necessary to
preprocess these data in some 3D package?

any pointers appreciated,

Hans Baveco