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NASA BlueMarble: Next Generation

Posted by Zonk on from the looking-down dept.

gbnewby writes "Remember the NASA Blue Marble composite image of earth from space, completely cloud free? Today a whole new series was released showing earth scenes from cloudless days across all 12 months of 2004. These beautiful images come in many different resolutions and formats. NASA even provided some animations. We and others have set up web, ftp and rsync mirrors; let the Torrents begin!"

6 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Nice pictures by Barkley44 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Reminds me of this great picture I was emailed a few years back http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmkempe/52260470/

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    KeepTrackOfIt.com - Find the lowest gas prices in your area graphically
    1. Re:Nice pictures by cowscows · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I once spent a good bit of time convincing someone that that was a conglomeration of many photos stitched together over time, and not one snapshot taken from the space station. And I though he was a smart guy, too. *sigh*

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

  2. Image size limits? by Carnildo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    JPEG and many other file formats are limited to 65,535 pixels in any given dimension. The largest image in this dataset is 86,400 x 43,200. What file format are they going to use?

    --
    "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
    1. Re:Image size limits? by Azul · · Score: 3, Interesting
      From their readme.pdf:

      the global 500m composites stored in the world big directory are raw binary files with the dimensions 3 x 86400 x 43200 (channels x columns x rows); data type is unsigned byte, with no header. They can be used for direct file access by data processing software (e.g. for subsetting, web-streaming etc.)

      Pretty raw, eh?

  3. Obligatory POV-RAY by AFairlyNormalPerson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How could someone post a giant, hires image of the earth and NOT post an obligatory pov-ray "Earth marble" in space?!


    // GENERATE WITH
    // povray +W640 +H480 +A0.3 -J +Q11 +R6
    #include "textures.inc"
    camera {location 8 look_at 0}
    light_source { -50 color rgb 1 }
    light_source { 50 color rgb 1 }
    sphere
    { 0, 4.5 pigment {image_map {
    jpeg "world.topo.bathy.200405.3x5400x2700.jpg"
    map_type 1 interpolate 2 } }
    finish {ambient 0.4 diffuse 1 specular 0} }
    sphere {
    0,1 texture { Starfield scale 1} scale 200
    no_shadow hollow on }

  4. ya but does it plug into google maps? by Dan9999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the subject read my mind