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The Virtual Planet Explorer
Roland Piquepaille writes "A European Union program has helped several European partners to develop the Virtual Planet (or V-Planet) software, which will enable its users to browse and interact in three dimensions with any part of our planet, according to IST Results. "Using Vplanet Explorer, anyone can set off on a journey to discover new regions in 3D, rather than staring at a flat map and trying to picture its scenery," says Eric Martin, coordinator of the IST project. The software can also be used for technical simulations and has already been used by both Airbus and Boeing. It should be available this summer for about 10,000 euros (about $12K). Besides other details and references, this overview contains several pictures of simulations using V-Planet."
Cue flames at Rolly-boy and his blog...
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Why not play around with Celestia (or similar) for free?
instead of visiting Rolands link farm (with his copy n pasted content)
try the real gallery he cribbed his images from
http://www.crs4.it/vic/images/
It should be available this summer for about 10,000 euros (about $12K)
Anyone got the torrent?
Awesome! I can't wait till it hits bitTorrent!
Why don't they just add models, and maybe an upgrade, to the FOSS Celestia? It's already got a fanatical userbase, very detailed engine, and lots of models. If the EU is going to spend the people's money on software, the people should get the source code they bought.
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make install -not war
Living in finland.. I have strange feeling, that EU funds every silly thing it cames across.
For example - EU decided that every building should be repaired in our city by some year (can't remember now)
And so buildings were repaired.. Very very fast. Quality of such repairs, are however - totally another story. Should I say - "Same shit, nicer cover"?
As about this V-Planet thingie.. Its cool. However I am somehow more fascinated at Google Maps.
Oh. And actual URL to V-Planet is here
Dephine URL
looking for the download link, and then I've seen it's actually proprietary software. Why is /. posting advertisments? How is this better than the new imagery avialable from Google?
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Interact in three dimensions with any part of our model of the planet.
Get a real woman you'll be happy with and you won't care so much for 3D models of the beaches of Brazil.
What do they mean by interact? Does this mean I can like wlak around in this 3-D world and kick over buildings and stuff? Also, if Boeing and Airbus use this too, what happens when I grab the airplane out of the sky?
Unknown host pong.
How does this compare to NASA's World Wind?
Wait. Does this mean, i don't have to leave my room if i'd like to take a walk to my hometown? Cool idea. Is the Resolution better than RL?
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I read in a newsgroup posting that it was developed using Python and OpenGL on IRIX (not surprising, really), and then ported with ease to the PC. I think that this application really goes to show the versatility of scripting languages like Python, assuming what I read was correct. Such languages are stepping away from the fringes towards mainstream, massive application development.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Last night, I looked into the Western sky and there were Venus, Saturn and Mercury. It was better with binoculars. They will be there again tonight.
Daily News http://newsblaze.com
This is another Roland Piquepaille troll, but notice that this time it isn't timothy but CmdrTaco who accepted the submission? Are they all in on it?
OsgPlanet can stream imagery from any MapServer using WMS protocol. (Check JPL's wms server for one http://wms.jpl.nasa.gov/) It builds a 3D model of the world on the fly using SRTM terrain data that you can download from the USGS for most of the globe.
The difference between this and something like Google maps is that osgPlanet and Vplanet let you actually fly around in the terrain, instead of just looking down at it.
If you're wondering what a voxel is, webopedia has a pretty good definition.
Basically, it's a "volume pixel", which apparently is a box with height, width, and depth, and it has to do with how fine images appear. The more voxels in the image, the smoother it'll appear. So a pixel is to a 2D image what a voxel is to a 3D image. Wikipedia .
Sorry for being kind of offtopic but what exactly is the relationship between Roland Piquepaille and the Slashdot editors? Because he's so often on the frontpage with his own blog its not any coincidence anymore, and the quality of his stories is generally doubtful at best. Is he some kind of relative, friend, business partner or what?
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
I can't believe this! This software is even capable of rendering lifelike penises, as seen by this image of the Statue of David:
a vid1mm_2px_full_crop.png
http://www.crs4.it/vic/data/images/img-exported/d
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Yes, instead of Roland getting some traffic to a page he created from content he's selected, compiled and edited, with commentary, why not make it economically impossible for him to continue that useful, interesting work? After all, Slashdot is stealing exactly the same amount of money from you, doing the same thing: nothing. What's your problem with someone making a little money for a little service, that costs you nothing, and which you aren't required to use?
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make install -not war
Wow, A program that simulates geographic views from any point on the globe by applying CGI to topographical data. Great for tourism, virtual and real.
Now, about all those people....
What about a program that simulates the experience of being around tens of millions of really poor people? Virtual Lagos, Virtual Nairobi, Virtual Mumbai, Virtual Shanghai, Virtual Sao Paulo, Virtual Mexico City, Virtual Djakarta.
Creating a program that simulates the earth as a beautiful place inhabitated by reasonable numbers of really nice people is a cultural conditioning exercise in proxy genocide. It prepares the mind for the deed just like the ultra-violent First-Person-Shooter video games and Hollywood movies prepare people to become mass murders.
"Wow, dude, blowing away a thousand people throwing rocks in front of the embassy with my too-cool XKE super machine gun was just like playing the most advanced game, man!. All the noise, all the screams, all the blood sprays, the bullet smell... like, totally awesome!
This project was funded with my fucking taxes so why should I have to pay another E 10,000 for it? I've already paid once. It should be released on an open source license, as should all publicly-developed software.
but this nice first picture looks much like a partially undressed lying woman to me.
Why do you want to destroy buildings and grab planes from the sky? Are you a King Kong terrorist?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
If you don't like this political policy, then don't bitch to us about it! Get out your pen and paper and write a letter to your EU parlimentary representative! Demand an investigation, my good man. Do you duty!
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Seems like everybody nowadays is throwing together GIS, satellite imagery, ecological information, etc onto a virtual world. Perhaps this is an area where we can start standardizing some XML? Put together a mastard standard for defining a world, then as we discovered new planets and sent expeditions to the ones in our solar system, we'd have a place to put all that information where all kinds of people and programs can interact with it.
"It should be available this summer for about 10,000 euros (about $12K)."
Torrent, please ^.^
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Does very similar things... is getting better every release... and it's free.
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
They made a 3D modeling program. So what?
I downloaded and tested Keyhole's http://www.keyhole.com/ Personal 2 LT software and am considering purchasing a subscription for $30 a year. The software is great, it's 3D and you can zoom, pan, rotate, tilt, see superimposed road maps, measure distances, create videos, etc. I've already journeyed virtually to many exotic places like Patagonia South America, the Amazon, New Zealand, northern places like Canada and Russia. Google now owns this company and it also provides for Google Maps. I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread!
I've only found a couple of problems with Keyhole. First, due to their crazy licensing, you can only run Keyhole on two machines. What this means is...
1. You can install the software on as many machines as you want.
2. Your account name will be your email address.
3. You will recieve a license key when you register.
4. If you try to use that license key to logon to more than two machines (not even at the same time) you will not be allowed to run it.
If you were trying to use the software on two machines or more at the same time, then not being allowed to run it would make sense. But I was testing several machines with different graphics and CPU capabilities and found that when I tried to logon to the third machine (at a different time) it would fail. Keyhole user support confirmed this dilemma. This just doesn't make sense to me.
Second, Keyhole isn't available for Linux, or OSX yet. But it does use OpenGl, so I don't see too much of a porting problem.
Finally, they want a different user account for each piece of their software they sell. I find that to be annoying.
It IS true (just see his site for yourself sometime).
/. to get his submissions approved.
The reason they don't get rid of him is because he pays good money to
Combine this with the Deep Impact Comet Exploder and you get the
Virtual Planet Exploder
Hmmm... Maybe not.
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ operators are standing by.
The real link to the project is here.. Roland the Plogger makes you go through two extra levels of blogs to get there. (Does he get traffic kickbacks, or what?) The project ran from 2001 to 2004; it's done.
And Keyhole does the same thing. For $29.95, not €12,000.
Planet Engine is OSS and already does all this.
I could have used this when I was playing Starflight.
I prefer my explorer in 2D, and really dont have any need for planet-viewing....
Seems not...
How can one NEED something which has never been available before?
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
Oh, wait, it's happening in Europe....
Sweet.
Two tidbits not exactly on topic that your phrase brings to mind:
1) Sums up my view of today's recording industry.
2) When Los Angeles hosted the Olympics, one thing the city did to spiff up was to get tuxedo rental companies to donate old tuxes, which were handed out to street people.
It's probably just me, but does anyone else look at the first sample image and see a woman lying on her back in a toga (with a Boeing aircraft crashing into her pelvis)? It looks like some toppled Greek statuary.