NASA Releases World Viewer

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."

Amazing...

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

Re:Amazing...

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

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

Re:Amazing...

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

Already slow

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

Re:Already slow

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarb le/ [nasa.gov]
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

Geostationary Satellite Server

I've been watching the weather and all sorts of neat stuff on the NOAA GEOS [noaa.gov] site for years. Not great for spying on your city, but great animations for tracking weather and hurricanes

Takes a hefty chunk of hardware

Recommended Specifications * Windows 2000, XP Home, or XP Professional * Intel Pentium 3 1 ghz or AMD Athlon or higher * 256 MB of RAM * 3D Graphics Card o nVidia GeForce 2 Ultra o ATI Radeon 7500 o Intel Extreme Graphics 2 * DSL / Cable connection or faster * 2 GB of disk space The requirements are a bit high, but the demo pictures they show are quite impressive. It does appear to be opensource, wonder how long it'll be before someone makes a Linux port, and ties to a newsfeed! Trouble in the Middle East? Lets take a look!

Wow!

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

Can we..

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

Re:Can we..

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

With a 259MB download, you won't need to zoom in. 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.

Re:Can we..

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

And a 'direct' download link

http://freecache.org/http://opensource.arc.nasa.go v/archives/worldwind-1_2.zip [freecache.org]
Also cached of course.

C# And DirectX...

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.

Don't be so proud of your technological terror...

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

Celestia

For those of you who like this sort of software, check out Celestia [shatters.net]. 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.

BEWARE - Way too proprietary!

It currently only works with ONE planet!

Commercial site (free usage)

Here is a commercial site [globexplorer.com] but you can use it for free with watermarks. You can zoom to a persons house. All you need to type in the address of the place. Pretty nice, check it out. Only problem is that some of the images are a couple years old... but then how often do streets and house move/change physcially?

Celestia and World Viewer

Hope someone would integrate this in to Celestia [shatters.net]or the other way around. Explore the deepest corners of the galaxy and be in your neighbourhood in a splitsecond.. Nice..

Tremendous graphics!

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

Snow Crash reference

Am I the only one who sees a Stephenson's Snow Crash reference in this?

Oh my god

We just slashdotted the World.

Re:WE SLASHDOTTED NASA

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?

Re:Bastards...

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! [creaturesinmyhead.com]

Re:A threat to our security?

Any GIS type application is considered a threat to our national security. If you take a look at these aerial views of DC [dc.gov] you can see how the federal government had the overhead views of the whitehouse and the capitol removed (or blocked). The last thing the government wants is to be responsible for a terrorist act. They feel that tools like this are useful to the general public, so they make them available. At the same time, they can see the emminent threat, so they limit its capabilities.

Re:A threat to our security?

Actually, the government erected huge white platforms above parts of the city to obscure the stuff that satellites were seeing. It blocked out the sun and all the plants died. They realized it was a bad idea, took the platforms down, and just used Paintbrush to erase the parts they didn't like.