NASA World Wind 1.4 Released With Trailer 117
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."
Hmm, time to rewrite the applet as a flash plugin. (Score:5, Interesting)
The data I had for hostip.info [gornall.net] was 1-pixel-per-kilometre. This new data is twice that resolution, and if I combine this new data with the soon-to-be-open-source 3d engine in Flash [papervision3d.org], I think it'd be really cool. Geolocate yourself or anyone else by their IP, then zoom around that location in 3d
Sounds like a fun thing to put together - maybe this weekend for the 2D stuff, and as soon as the 3D engine is open-source, I'll include that
As always with this sort of thing, it's getting hold of the data that's the hard part - kudos to those giving it away free to research, education, and me
Simon
Re:Hmm, time to rewrite the applet as a flash plug (Score:2)
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Simon
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Ew. 3D in Flash? (Score:2)
Their demos lag visibly on my beast of a gaming machine. Probably not significantly, but it's there. And that's with their demos... no wonder it's called "papervision", everything looks like origami!
Wake me up when we have a browser plugin that actually uses hardware 2D/3D acceleration. Like, say, OpenGL. Because this is just ridiculous.
Fantastic 3D in Flash? (Score:2)
Simon.
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No, really, it's not something I'd complain about, except that these demos really are pretty simple, and I shouldn't be getting any lag at all. Quake 4 performs about as well on this system, on High settings, so you can see why that's annoying.
I could show you another benchmark, too, that I'm curious to see someone replicate on a non-Linux version of Flash. YouTube Flash uses some 50% of my 1.8 ghz CPU running a video fullscreen. Save that video with the Firefox VideoDown
So.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This sort of stuff is so amazing to me, never before has mankind had the ability to get maps of areas with this much detail in such vast areas. I really wonder what past generations would think.
But, I still want to play GTA and rampage my own neiborhood.
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There's a lot of three-dimensional content to be generated before that can happen.
If I knew a bunch of brilliant graphics-analysis programmers, I'd want to put together a startup to do mapping for video games and other driving simulations. You need to capture rough geometry and texture map data for everything you drive by. The system needs to recognize signs (probably best done with a combination of lidar and radar) and make textures for them, too. Finally, it's got to know where the vehicle is (DGPS?)
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Sure, know where the houses are, and roughly how big, but they dont need to be identical. Using data from nice satalite images would be enough. You'd want it to dynamically generate property, people, parked cars, etc. Being close, or even identical, would be great, but its no requirement.
You'd need to run the images through a computer and geographic inform
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On the routes I'm talking about, most things are wholly or partially covered by trees. Most of the other roads I'd like to drive are very poorly imaged.
The most important things are the roadway, more or less accurate tree
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Driving around with a truck shooting lasers all over the place to do a good 3D scan of its surroundings might be a bit problematic though...
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to rampage around your neighborhood too...definitely stop by your mom's place for some hot coffee.
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PC only? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there a Mac of Linux version available or are we left out in the cold?
Re:PC only? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PC only? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Still not sure what a multithreaded "context" means, though. Adding a lock around every graphics call is NOT "multithreading" (actually Microsoft is somewhat better than Unix in this respect, take a look at the horrible way libc added a lock around every single stdio call and thus killed it's
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one small but critical element for the use of DirectX over OpenGL, multi-threaded graphics device access.
Not sure exactly how DirectX (now Direct3D) implements its thread-safe layer, but I think the important question is how well will the new Java version work? I haven't played with Java3D much, but I doubt it's integrated with hardware as closely as DirectX is, so I can't imagine its performance is going to be comparable.
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DirectX = Direct3D + DirectDraw + DirectPlay + DirectInput, more or less.
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System Requirements
* Windows 2000, XP, or 2003
* 3D graphics card (see Video Card Compatibility)
* Internet connection
* Sorry, no support for Linux or Macintosh yet
Re:PC only? (Score:5, Informative)
That would appear to be one reason that (as the OP said) NASA is moving to World Wind Java [earthissquare.com].
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To me it sounds like mumblespeak from the guy who's taken over development of the
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Windows only. It's using .Net and DirectX so I wouldn't expect port anytime soon.
offtopic:
Jesus fuck, PC stands for personal computer, not Windows (hint: Apple commercials lie)
Signed: Concerned PC with GNU/Linux operating system user
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Yes, it's possible Jesus fucked. Maybe he was gay and fucked his disciples, maybe he fucked Maria Magdalena, who knows...
Apart from that, while it's true that PC is short for personal computer, that doesn't mean that e.g. an office computer owned by the company can't be called a PC. According to this wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], IBM applied for a trademark for the term "Personal Computer" in 1981 (three years after Apple had use
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IMHO, a great competitor to Google Earth.
Great imagery. Fast response
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Hmm... (Score:1)
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This reminds me of one of my college professors, who for some reason thought Microsoft could do no wrong. Every day he would come into class and say stuff like, "I was looking at the first public beta of
When pressed, he always answered with something about "metadata improvements" and "XML", as well as stipulating "you could go look
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What about a free XP? (Score:2)
Unless, of course, you don't comply with the "Windows Genuine Advantage" (TM) requisites. If they really wanted to give you a lawyer-secure system, they would have made one that works with a Free OS.
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Whoa -- useful for design ... (Score:3, Interesting)
THAT is pretty cool, actually. As someone often called on to do design tasks that straddle the line between infographic and visualization, I think I need to give WW another look. I never really considered it once Google Earth came out, because Google Earth was easier for whatever globehopping question I had. But being able to quickly do this kind of visualization ("uh, hey -- we need a picture of the population density of South Dakota, matching our company's color scheme, by tomorrow") should make my life a little easier.
I'm confused... (Score:1)
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Who else has the capability to fight the last of the Space Nazi armada and the last of Japan's remaining Giant Space Robots?...
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Ofiicial site (Score:1)
(as apposed to the submitters Wiki - not that I'm ungrateful for his contributions and bringing this news to my attention)
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Re:Grammar priorities! (Score:5, Funny)
video? (Score:1)
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World Wind Java (Score:5, Informative)
The windows version (.net 2.0) is primarily being supported by the open source community since the funding and direction for the NASA World Wind team is towards the Java version.
the community does welcome anyone that wants to come in and help at working the code, DX developers would help a lot to get some of the features hammered out more smoothly.
What is Java version using in place of DX-9 (Score:2)
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Crappy music quality (Score:2)
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Does it run on linux? (Score:1)
Too true (Score:3, Interesting)
That's obvious - because GE's goals include things like stability and performance - two things WorldWind noticeably lacks. (Not to mention the horror that is WorldWind's UI.)
I just tried V1.4 - and it has the same braindead UI problems that previous versions have suffered. When you grab a point on the globe - you start the globe spinning, rather than as in GE grabbing a 'handle' to position the map. (And as the rotation speed speed of the globe varies with lag - it's frustrating to position precisely.) When you zoom in - WW loads each and every layer of zoom between the one you start with and where you end up. (This slows rendering (which is glacial to start with) and makes it difficult to reach a precise zoom point and take a goodly amount of time if you change zoom by any significant amount.) Etc... Etc...
This isn't something for the F/OSS community to be proud of. It was a piece of crap when they took it over - and it's still a piece of crap.
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Wrong. Clicking on a point will move to that location, but dragging works just like it does in GE. Incidentally, you can turn off the clicking behavior and the planet inertia/momentum in the View menu.
When you zoom in - WW loads each and every layer of zoom between the one you start with and where you end up.
Which is also exactly what GE does. Google can just afford faster serve
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To put it simply - bullshit. When I click and drag in GE, it stops when I release the mouse. When I click and drag in WW it continues to drift.
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GE does keep spinning, it just has its inertia set much lighter than WW does. And you can change that in the options if you don't like it.
Wrong. GE does not render each and every layer - let alone load them. WW does.
GE doesn't use the same level/row/column scheme as WW does, but I don't notice much difference in tile loading time between WW and GE. It seems to use
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Then.. turn the feature OFF then. Sheesh, quit bitching and LOOK at the configuration options.
Wrong. GE does not render each and every layer - let alone load them. WW does.
Watching GE load on a modem, I would have to disagree.. it takes forever to load tiles. (Zoom down to 100 meters and it is a 15 minute wait to see the spot.) With World Wind I would have to
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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. But, if you really like the GE contro
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When a program, out of the box, behaves i
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What other 3d map program have you used besides GE?
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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.
Now that is a ridiculous argument.
Because out of the box, the iPhone behaves in a different (and unexpected) way from virtually every other cell phone out there - it's broken.
Because out of the box, the electric light behaves in a different (and unexpected) way from virtually every other light source out there - it's broken.
Because out of the box, the iPod behaved in a different (and unexpected) way from virtually every other mp3 player out there at the time - it's broken.
Because out of the box, the GU
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I am perfectly comfortable driving with the gear stick on the left or the right and I don't get mixed up between break and gas pedal since
However I do confess that upon switching from RHD to LHD I have my left hand trying t
So -- what GIS frameworks? (Score:2)
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NASA World Wind vs Google Earth (Score:5, Informative)
NASA World Wind sadly never had the media coverage GE had. This is kind of sad. People seems to forget, or ignore, that you can't use Google Earth in a work environment. Well, more precisely, you can't legally install the free version Google Earth in any work environment [slashgeo.org], not even the Plus version (20$US), you need the Pro (400$US) or the Enterprise version. Why am I underlining this? Because I believe this should have helped NASA World Wind to capture mind share. Should, because not a lot of people care about that fact and Google will not enforce this, since they benefit from the number of people using it, a little like Microsoft did not care about Windows being copied some centuries ago. Oh, this change in the license came with version 4 of the GE beta, launched last summer.
Here's the interesting Google Earth vs NASA World Wind comparison [worldwindcentral.com], on the WW Central website.
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Isn't there some stipulation in trademark law that you have to enforce your rights in order to keep them? Same thing with squatters, if you don't enforce your property rights you lose them. Shouldn't the same apply to licenses?
Virtual Earth high resolution imagery in NASA WW (Score:5, Informative)
My grammar eyes! The goggles... they do nothing! (Score:2)
Java version - great! (Score:2)
I think the Java naysayers have out of date opinions, JVMs of the past few years are not much trouble to set up and have very good performance. They may use more memory, but if you have a gig in your syste
Hardware Rendered Thin Client Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
At the time (with what would be very low-end hardware now) it actually performed pretty well and could serve up 100 fps or so from a Nvidia Geforce II card. Aolserver is multithreaded and the tricky part was getting the hardware rendering queueing code stable.
I did a simple html interface for navigation and the response time from the server at 10ms to generate the image was enough that it felt like a static image off a filesystem. This worked really well when there were large amounts of source data in the image and returning the output images was a lot quicker than returning all the source data and rendering on the client.
I would think that with today's video hardware it would be possible to have a client that lets the user trace a path across the earth, have the server render all of the sequencial images and create a mpeg-4 video and return it to the client real time.
I have all of the C/OpenGL/TCL source from what I did before in a dusty box of CD's marked "Things I got bored with once I got them to work" if anyone is interested in it.
Videos? (Score:1)
A Microsoft Open Source Activity? (Score:1)
needs street maps (Score:2)
Well, even if you're not interested in this topic (Score:1)
Solution (Score:1)
is there a "solar wind" in the works? (Score:1)
heck, how about a "milky way wind"?
great work on this guys! it's a great inspiration...
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Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
Informative? Unfortunate. (Score:1, Interesting)
Moving WW to Java is a very good idea, provided the WW devs know what they're doing. Given past experiences,