New Map Program From Nasa, This thing rocks...... Options

[mtnsteve]

This is an accumulation of posts I made at another site, I thought I would share.
Warning, the servers are being updated for Landsat 7 so don't expect to get any images there. You can find links to folks that have saved files to share. The program doesn't have any way to input waypoints or anything like that, but it is an amazing piece of work. Submit your ideas how to make it better and perhaps they will add features for GPS use.


From Slashdot....

"Nasa has 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."

Man this is cool, it's like having a map program for almost anywhere you can imagine. Full USGS maps for almost anywhere in the USA... along with toys that look like they came from CSI, or NASA...lol

You can set it to look for events all over the world, storms, volcano's, fires...you name it, in real time...then zoom in close enough to see individual streets. The LandSat 7 site is down, it seems too many people are trying to access it.

This thing is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!

Word of caution, it needs lots of horsepower and if you don't have a cable/DSL line or something equivalent, don't even try. Here is the NASA link to the website (not the download). WARNING, it's a rather large download, 250 MB. I'm downloading it now and will give a review after I get to play with it awhile.

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”


http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/index.html

More info and discussion can be found here

http://www.ocukmods.co.uk/showthread.php?s...readid=17293642

This thing ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here are some screenshots of it...

http://community.webshots.com/album/197926839yOGQVa

This post has been edited by mtnsteve: Oct 9 2004, 03:31 PM

[vagabond]

I think everybody and their brother is trying to down load this program. guess I'll try in a couple of days

[TotemLake]

Might make it a few more days wait... From their website:

=-=-
News & Updates

Problem connecting to server...will try again in 2 minutes:
This problem, related to downloading LandSat7 imagery and terrain, is a server issue. It is unable to cope with demand, so we are exploring ways on coming up with a solution. Thank you for your patience.
=-=-

Or... you can go here and try.

(You might want to give me another 15 minutes before downloading so you don't hammer my attempt.)

This post has been edited by TotemLake: Oct 9 2004, 05:15 PM

[Neo_Geo]

I downloaded it a few days ago, and just got around to installing it. It has serious potential!

We never had anything like this when I was a kid!!!

Imagine... maybe in 10 or 20 years, we'll be operating real time, hi-res satellite spycams like webcams. Consider the implications

Let's see where my wife is going... D'Oh!! She's stopping at my best friend's house! Let's zoom in for a closer look and see what they're doing in there... D'Oh!!!

Okay, maybe the world isn't quite ready for that technology yet

[pcmike]

If you're looking for the software please see this post: http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/forums...findpost&p=2028

If you're looking for datasets, just start at the beginning of that thread: http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/forums...p?showtopic=227

This post has been edited by pcmike: Oct 9 2004, 09:27 PM

[TotemLake]

I just removed it. The zoom-in to see a specific location isn't close enough for my purposes. For me, it has a WOW factor but nothing more. It's also very bandwidth and cpu heavy. In its current state, it isn't useful for geocaching in the sense of how I would use it. I'll wait for later versions and see what they come up with then.

[mtnsteve]

Yea, this does take a lot of juice to run
I like it because it gives you access to virtually all USGS maps for the USA and you don't need to know the lat and long before you go to a location...just point and zoom.

Once they get the Landsat7 site up the zoom feature will work like it should again.

I do wish they would make it GPS compatible, I would love to be able to download my waypoints and tracks into it.

[mtnsteve]

I just got this from the NASA site...



"There is work to convert GPX files into data worldwind to read. This way it will show trails marked in your GPS devices on WW. This should be coming soon.

GPS support is probably in the middle of a very long TO-DO list."

[TotemLake]

Very cool. It probably won't be too long before I reinstall it again. Btw... just for the short duration I used it, it went from an installed 253MB to 634MB with all the files I was requesting.

[GreyingJay]

Any way to save zooms to a video file for inclusion in a video project? Would be a great way to start a short home-made film or movie, a zoom-in from space down to the area in question.

[mtnsteve]

Don't know about the zoom thing....but I found a forum where you folks that are a lot more savvy then me, can help with the GPS integration.

http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/forums...p?showtopic=271