Slashdot Mirror


NASA Releases World Viewer

Klatoo55 writes "Nasa has released a comprehensive world viewing tool that allows you to zoom from planetary resolution down to where you can pick out individual streets. Really cool, but it needs a good internet connection and a decent graphics card. There's all sorts of interesting features, such as the ability to tilt your view for a flight-sim like experience and a data display feature that shows current natural disasters, political boundaries, weather patterns, and landmarks on the Earth's surface, all while providing a dynamic satellite's eye view of the planet."

15 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Geostationary Satellite Server by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've been watching the weather and all sorts of neat stuff on the NOAA GEOS site for years. Not great for spying on your city, but great animations for tracking weather and hurricanes

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Takes a hefty chunk of hardware by Mr+Guy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Recommended Specifications * Windows 2000, XP Home, or XP Professional * Intel Pentium 3 1 ghz or AMD Athlon or higher * 256 MB of RAM * 3D Graphics Card o nVidia GeForce 2 Ultra o ATI Radeon 7500 o Intel Extreme Graphics 2 * DSL / Cable connection or faster * 2 GB of disk space The requirements are a bit high, but the demo pictures they show are quite impressive. It does appear to be opensource, wonder how long it'll be before someone makes a Linux port, and ties to a newsfeed! Trouble in the Middle East? Lets take a look!

  3. A free version of Keyhole? by Andorion · · Score: 3, Informative

    I had a subscription to Keyhole World Viewer for a while, it's the same type of thing with a shnazzy interface and features. You can download it for a free trial at their site, I haven't tried the NASA one so I don't know how it compares.

    ~Berj

    1. Re:A free version of Keyhole? by bentfork · · Score: 4, Informative
      Nope, it is a 3d accelerated GIS viewer.

      They have a huge amount of data in varried resolution. Most of it is available from multiple sources for free; however they have it all in one spot and all converted for their program.

      What makes it truly great is the ability to add your own overlays directly over top of its data. Quite a spectacular product.

      If you have it give this a try take a image of vegitaion [A] and overlay it over Iraq with at 30% transparency. Add a overlay that with the sunni / sheite population densities [B] and do the same.

      KaPow! Data in context. Quite amazing really.

      [A] vegetation will require some cutting and pasting... but the images you have w/ key hole are pretty good
      [B] Religious groups

      If you want to check them out they are here:
      earthviewer

      [ I dont' work for them, but I would ;) ]

    2. Re:A free version of Keyhole? by John+Jorsett · · Score: 3, Informative

      I use Keyhole and it has a geographical bookmark feature, at least as I understand the concept. Also, the newest version has finally added display of coordinates, which I've wanted for years.

  4. C# And DirectX... by malakai · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pretty cool stuff. The developer says the core will compile on Mono, but obviously there isn't DX for Mono.

    Maybe someone can think about a Manged-DX style wrapper around OpenGL for the Mono Project.

    Can't think it would be easy though. DX does a lot for you.

    The source is supposed to be placed on SourceForge soon. Should be a fun project to hack on.

  5. Commercial site (free usage) by McFly69 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is a commercial site but you can use it for free with watermarks. You can zoom to a persons house. All you need to type in the address of the place. Pretty nice, check it out. Only problem is that some of the images are a couple years old... but then how often do streets and house move/change physcially?

    --



    NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
  6. Re:Can we.. by Henk+Poley · · Score: 3, Informative
  7. servers is down but by jjshoe · · Score: 3, Informative

    you can still download the program from here

    --
    -- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount} /dev/girl -t {wet;fsck;fsck;yes;yes;yes;umount} {/de
  8. And a 'direct' download link by Henk+Poley · · Score: 4, Informative
  9. Re:Hmmmm? by benchbri · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope, The terraserver is USGS aerial photography. This, however is GOES satellite data. Pretty cool, IMHO. I was on the Terraserver planning my trip last week to Centralia, Pennsylvania. Has had a coal fire burning underneath it for 40 years. Look at the street grids with no houses on them. And if you scroll 100 meters south of downtown, there's a giant steaming crater. It's a fun place. I'd love to fly through Centralia on this Nasa thing. Anybody know what the resolution is? I doubt it would be better than 1 meter...

  10. BitTorrent to the rescue! by Jaeger · · Score: 5, Informative

    Until NASA's servers manage to recover from the demand, here's a Torrent for your downloading enjoyment.

  11. Re:259M download! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://centraldownload.mine.nu/download.php?id=110 6&hit=1&file=worldwind.torrent Here is the torrent. It is slow to start but is getting faster with more people.

  12. Re:Hosting a torrent by wscott · · Score: 5, Informative
    How about this one:

    http://centraldownload.mine.nu/download.php?id=110 6&hit=1&file=worldwind.torrent

    (I didn't make the torrent, but I did post the link. ;-)

  13. Open Source & Porting by Bungopolis · · Score: 4, Informative
    I emailed lead developer Randy Kim about the use of the proprietary DirectX library in World Wind, and the possibility of ports to Linux and other systems. Here is his response:
    World Wind is still a new piece of software and we're still defining all the features that go into it. Afterwards, we would like to port it to as many platforms as possible but it is a matter of resources. We have only one main coder and pseudo-designer (myself). We're just interns! When steps start heading in that direction, we'll update our web site.
    We started with a windows platform since that is where most of our audience is. It is our full intention to port World Wind. Meanwhile, we'll definitely invite the possibility of having the open source community help out with the porting.