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NASA World Wind 1.4 Released With Trailer

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fun-toys dept.

Bull_UK writes "As many of you probably already know NASA had to shift it's priorities to the upcoming Java version of World Wind, leaving 1.4 effectively orphaned, but the Open Source community came together and with a lot of hard work we were able to finish what Chris Maxwell started. Some of the new things which differentiate the new World Wind from the competition are the amazing new visual effects, including HDR, check out the video for some examples. Remember this virtual globe has never had the same goals as Google Earth, if you just want to see your house stick with GE, although many areas have high resolution as good and sometimes better than GE. World Wind is aimed at education and science, all the default imagery is copyright free, you don't need to purchase a license to redistribute the imagery and there are no pro or expert versions to buy, you can happily use World Wind at work or school without fear of any lawyers confiscating your research."

1 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Too true by DerekLyons · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The previous poster mentioned this as well, but I'll note it clearly: You can change the default behavior of setting the earth moving by turning off Motion Momentum and/or Planet Inertia in the View menu. You can also try turning of Point Go-To to see if that's more to your liking.
    In World Wind, like a lot of F/OSS apps, you have options. Take the blinders off, and realize that there are other ways of doing things, and some ways might even be, dare I say it, better.

    When a program, out of the box, behaves in a different (and unexpected) way from virtually every other map program out there - it's broken. It doesn't matter that you can change it. I don't object to options - I object to ill designed UI's.
     
     

    And I notice you throw flashy words like "stability" and "performance" out there, but then just whine about the UI. Perhaps you should actually complain about what you set out to complain about.

    Maybe you should actually read what I wrote - and note that under the discussion of UI I also note performance issues.