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NASA Releases World Viewer

Posted by michael on from the to-infinity-and-beyond dept.

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."

5 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Celestia by Milo+Fungus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those of you who like this sort of software, check out Celestia. It is a 3D space simulator, and lets you visit objects in our solar system and a bunch of stars. It's really amazing, and it's open source! My sister uses it for teaching astronomy to the neighborhood kids in their home-schooling class.

  2. Re:Already slow by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarb le/
    This site has some absolutely stunning still shots of earth. Available as several hundred K JPGs, 1-2 meg JPGs, and up to 30 meg TIFFs.
    -nB

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    whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
  3. Celestia and World Viewer by cOdEgUru · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hope someone would integrate this in to Celestia or the other way around. Explore the deepest corners of the galaxy and be in your neighbourhood in a splitsecond.. Nice..

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    Rapid Nirvana
  4. Re:A threat to our security? by slungsolow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Any GIS type application is considered a threat to our national security. If you take a look at these aerial views of DC you can see how the federal government had the overhead views of the whitehouse and the capitol removed (or blocked). The last thing the government wants is to be responsible for a terrorist act. They feel that tools like this are useful to the general public, so they make them available. At the same time, they can see the emminent threat, so they limit its capabilities.

  5. Re:WE SLASHDOTTED NASA by Skye16 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We really need to get "slashdotted" entered into the Oxford dictionary. Seriously, if "bling-bling" can make its way in, at least something practical AND unobnoxious should get in easily.