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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."

22 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing... by jhtrih · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is cool. I can see my house! Now if my neighbor had been sunbathing at the time...

    1. Re:Amazing... by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


      Now if my neighbor had been sunbathing at the time...

      ...you'd be checking out his package?

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    2. Re:Amazing... by hsteck_ylf · · Score: 5, Funny

      too bad we crashed nasa's webserver in under 20 minutes :)

      --
      If you are expecting something here, I don't know what to tell you...
    3. Re:Amazing... by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Funny

      You know thats quite some achievement.. ;) .. Usually nasa servers can take large amounts of load ..

      Maybe they calculated the load using the Metric system while /. uses the American system...

      Just a thought ;)

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  2. Already slow by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I ran to check out the sit and it is Cooooool, but Nasa's gonna have an astronimical bandwith bill today :)
    -nB

    --
    whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    1. 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

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
  3. 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
  4. Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can finally see the world outside of my Mother's basement!!!!

  5. Can we.. by segfault7375 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will we be able to zoom in on the smoking ruins of the slashdotted webserver? :)

    1. Re:Can we.. by pete-classic · · Score: 5, Funny
      You'll be able to see the crater from orbit. Heck, you'll probably be able to see the crater from the surface of the moon.


      I remember back when the moon was in orbit. Man, those were the days.

      -Peter
  6. 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.

    --
    -Malakai
    A Dragon Lives in my Garage
  7. Don't be so proud of your technological terror... by weeboo0104 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The power to view a planet is insignificant next to the power of a slashdotting.

    --
    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
  8. 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.

  9. Re:WE SLASHDOTTED NASA by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are you sure? Has anyone checked to see if the dolphins are still around or large slab-like somethings are hanging in the sky very much unlike bricks?

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  10. BEWARE - Way too proprietary! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It currently only works with ONE planet!

  11. Re:Bastards... by napa1m · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't lie. I'm using it right now on my Windows box and I can see into your closet, there's nothing in there but skeletons and that 'touchy' uncle!

    -- ^nA
    the CREATURES, they live!

    --
    ^nA! Creatures in my Head
  12. Tremendous graphics! by suicidedoll · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder what engine the builder used to design that world? It's pretty fantastic! And the level design, simply AMAZING!

  13. Re:NSA by TheClassic · · Score: 5, Funny
    "I have a feeling that they can count the fucking hairs on your nut sack with the technology they have now-a-days."
    One of the many reasons I wear pants.
  14. "Hello, World!" by johnthorensen · · Score: 5, Funny

    So this is what you get when you put a bunch of rocket scientists together and tell them to write a "Hello, World?" app?

    -JT

  15. 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.

  16. 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.

  17. 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. ;-)