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NASA BlueMarble: Next Generation

Posted by Zonk on Thu Oct 13, 2005 06:35 PM
from the looking-down dept.
Space Science
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!"
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NASA BlueMarble: Next Generation 50 Comments More /

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  • Celestia (Score:5, Informative)

    by Slashdiddly (917720) on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:36PM (#13786640)
    The best way to enjoy NASA's blue marble is through Celestia [shatters.net].

    • Clarification, or what CELESTIA actually is (Score:5, Informative)

      by Work Account (900793) on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:42PM (#13786680) Journal
      The creators call Celestia a "free space simulation" that lets you explore the Universe in 3D.

      It runs on all platforms including my favourite, Linux.

      "Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All movement in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit. Celestia is expandable. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that's not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects."

      • Re:Clarification, or what CELESTIA actually is (Score:5, Funny)

        by glwtta (532858) on Thursday October 13 2005, @08:57PM (#13787436) Homepage
        I'm not getting it: there's no enemy space craft to shoot, no asteroids to mine... my ship doesn't even seem to have any laser beams, or photon torpedoes, or plasma gatlin guns - nothing!

        How are you supposed to play this?

      • ../celutil/resmanager.h: In member function 'typename T::ResourceType* ResourceManager::find(ResourceHandle) [with T = ModelInfo]':
        body.cpp:575: instantiated from here ../celutil/resmanager.h:108: error: dependent-name 'std::map, std::allocator >,typename T::ResourceType*,std::less, std::allocator > >,std::allocator, std::allocator >, typename T::ResourceType*> > >::value_type' is parsed as a non-type, but instantiation yields a type ../celutil/resmanager.h:108: note: say 'typename st
    • ...it'll inspire Chris Laurel to work on it again. Fellow makers Dr. Fridger Schrempp and "Toti" have been left largely on their own with the code these days, it seems. [shatters.net] It's amazing in any case, and I doubt it'll need any work from Chris for me (or anyone else) to have the new (if at all different) Blue Marble on Celestia.

  • mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:37PM (#13786652)
    here [alaska.edu]

  • Earth First (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead (54550) on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:39PM (#13786663)
    Earth First!

    Slashdot Saturn [nasa.gov] later!

  • Tip for browsers -- RIGHT CLICK SAVE AS (Score:4, Informative)

    by Work Account (900793) on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:39PM (#13786668) Journal
    I suggest a right-click of mouse and then Save As in the browser to save the above-linked images.

    The files are huge and may be Slashdotted soon as well.

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

  • mirror with my modem (Score:5, Funny)

    by aarku (151823) on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:49PM (#13786726) Journal
    I set up a 386 to mirror the 22 gigs of data with my 56k modem connection right here [127.0.0.1]. Not too many at once, please

  • Image size limits? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Carnildo (712617) on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:50PM (#13786736) Homepage Journal
    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?

    • Re:Image size limits? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Slashdiddly (917720) on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:56PM (#13786787)
      What file format are they going to use?

      The file name is world.200412.3x86400x43200.bin.gz

      Clearly they went with the bin format :)

    • Re:Image size limits? (Score:4, Informative)

      by kidgenius (704962) on Thursday October 13 2005, @07:01PM (#13786828)
      The previous max res was split into 2 files that you could bring together. One JPEG for the western hemisphere, one for the eastern.

    • Re:Image size limits? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Azul (12241) on Thursday October 13 2005, @07:23PM (#13786938) Homepage
      From their readme.pdf [alaska.edu]:

      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?

    • I work in the vis studio that produced the animations and I can tell you that file formats are a big problem with images this size. We usually work in TIFF, and while the TIFF format has no specific resolution limits, it is effectively limited to 4GB per image due to the use of internal 32-bit offsets. The full Blue Marble NG data sets simply don't fit in common image formats. Work is being done on a "big TIFF" spec that includes 64-bit offsets and other improvements that will accomodate much larger imag
    • JPEG and many other file formats are limited to 65,535 pixels in any given dimension.
      I wouldn't call that limiting. 64K pixels should be enough for anybody!

  • NASA World Wind (Score:5, Informative)

    by Llynix (586718) <llynix AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday October 13 2005, @06:57PM (#13786799) Homepage Journal
    NASA's open source world viewer project World Wind [nasa.gov] will have support for next generation Blue Marble on the 20th. In fact developers today got the beta xml with coverage of all thirty six new blue marble layers.

  • Impressive... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sanx (696287) on Thursday October 13 2005, @07:20PM (#13786922) Homepage
    We've /.ed an entire planet.

    • Re:Impressive... (Score:4, Informative)

      by gbnewby (74175) * on Thursday October 13 2005, @08:02PM (#13787169) Homepage
      For the geeks: Yes, I'm tuning the Apache server a bit during the /.'ing. Sorry for people who get dropped connections while I do this. I decided to upgrade to the Apache 2.1.8 beta for large file support & a few other features. The server is from ASA Servers, and has three 1.7TB SATA RAID arrays on Western Digital 250GB drives, with dual 2.8Ghz Xeon processors and 12GB of RAM. It's running SuSE 9.1. I put the FTP copy (vsftpd) on one array, and the http + rsync copy on another array. This is a pretty hefty server, but I've been changing tuning (xinetd, vsftpd, httpd and some kernel stuff) in response to traffic to try to keep it handling things. It's lots of fun, and reminds me of my close days with iBiblio [ibiblio.org], which was a frequent slashdot target.

      • Torrents (Score:3, Informative)

        by mjbkinx (800231)
        FYI: The tracker doesn't seem to be able to handle it -- also, the torrent for the BIG one from November is missing in the directory [alaska.edu].

        Anyway, thanks for making this available and for all the bandwidth :)

  • Here's another mirror. There's a really big map, and a wallpaper that I made for personal use. http://eightyford.com/archives/126/ [eightyford.com]

  • EarthSLOT (Score:5, Informative)

    by gbnewby (74175) * on Thursday October 13 2005, @07:27PM (#13786954) Homepage
    I forgot to mention in the posting: there are several neat
    fly-over navigation programs that can use these images. One
    with a tie to the U. Alaska is EarthSLOT [earthslot.org].
    The mirror links include an "earthslot" subdirectory, where
    ready-made flyover files are available. Unfortunately,
    EarthSLOT is Windows-centric :(
  • I didn't think you could /. a Torrent, but the tracker is refusing my connections.

    Pull the ftp and http access to the actual files, and leave just the torrents and tracker -- make people HELP you distribute the data, not just plow your server into a smoking heap hot enough to melt any nearby glaciers.

    http://geotorrent.org/ [geotorrent.org] would probably be a good cohort too.

  • Oblig. Karma Whore (Score:3)

    by grape jelly (193168) on Thursday October 13 2005, @07:35PM (#13787003)
    Since the given mirrors are slashdotted, here's the obligatory corel cache link:

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/New sroom/BlueMarble/ [nyud.net]
  • Has anyone downloaded the "big" (non-tiled) raw dataset yet to comment on whether it is accessible through normal image-editing software? Photoshop (and presumably the Gimp) can open raw image data, but whether this particular file woks (and what settings it requires) don't seem to be mentioned anywhere.

    I'd love to wallpaper my office with this image (I have a large 40"x50" version of an earlier 20k x 20k image currently) and would like to do all my adjustments on the original 500m file, then tile it to my

    • Re:Photoshop capable? (Score:5, Informative)

      by XenonOfArcticus (53312) on Thursday October 13 2005, @08:08PM (#13787204) Homepage
      Photoshop: Open As, Raw, select the file, fill in the X and Y dimensions. Number of channels is 3, 0 bytes header. I haven't been able to get one of the files yet, so I can't tell you if you need to turn on interleaved or not, but I suspect you will want interleaved.

      We (3D Nature) packaged up the old BlueMarble data, along with 1Km terrain data for the whole earth (GTOPO30) on a product called Ultimate Earth [3dnature.com] for our landscape visualization software, Visual Nature Studio [3dnature.com]. It's pretty cool to be able to pull up an area, add your own data to what we provide, and have a ready-made planet visualization.
        • Photoshop CS2 can work with files up to 300k x 300k now! It's great, but of course few file formats support that size. Raw files, TIFF, and the new PSB (Photoshop large document format) do, thanks for mentioning it though since I looked it up in the help file -- I worried for a minute that it might not open a raw file of that size.

          3 more hours until the file is finished downloading for me, I'll post here to let folks know if it works :)
  • 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 sca
  • This is the best reason yet to get a faster computer with a nice video card. It would be nice if someone had a wiki for linux people to mention their experiences. Seems many cards get glitches in zooming. See WorldWind video card page [worldwindcentral.com] (for windows but maybe same issues on other linux software when zooming this data?) Speaking of which if anyone has a recommendation for a distro / windowmanager / xserver / video card / machine configuration for this type of thing now would be a good time! I remember whe

  • TFW file for Blue Marble Next Generation (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rahga (13479) on Thursday October 13 2005, @10:06PM (#13787754) Homepage Journal
    Assuming there is or will be a 86400x43200 TIF of JPEG file, you can use a TFW of JFW file that reads like this in your favorite GIS app:

    0.00416666666666
    0.00000000000000
    0.00000000000000
    -0.00416666666666
    -180.00000000000000
    90.00000000000000

    I've got a bundle of these from the last Blue Marble at this page [rahga.com].

    I do work for Mud Springs Geographers [mudsprings.com], which have an app called AWhere that support loading this sort of image as a map layer. I'm not into crass commercialism, but unfortunately, Slashdot won't let me post just that TFW because of the lameness filter. You'd think they would make excpetions for anciend user ids or excellent karma, but no..... :)

    (Okay, I've removed the whitespace from the snippet above, but keep in mind that most TFW files have the decimal point positioned 20 spaces from the left edge.)
    • Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.

      Let see

      5% > 1%

      50% > 1%

      99% > 15

      Works for me.

      If > and confuse you just remember:
      the alligator is hungry so the mouth opens towards the bigger meal.

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