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NASA World Wind
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Screenshot of WorldWind showing Blue Marble Next Generation layer |
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| Developed by | NASA Ames Research Center |
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| Initial release | 2004 |
| Latest release | 1.4 / February 14, 2007 |
| Written in | C# |
| OS | Windows 2000, XP |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Virtual globe |
| License | NASA Open Source license v1.3 |
| Website | worldwind.arc.nasa.gov |
WorldWind is a free open source virtual globe developed by NASA and open source community for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows. The program overlays NASA and USGS satellite imagery, aerial photography, topographic maps and publicly available GIS data on 3D models of the Earth and other planets.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
WorldWind was released for the first time in 2004 by NASA. The latest version (1.4) developed mainly by open source community members from WorldWind Central/Free Earth Foundation had its premiere on February 14, 2007.
Apart from the Earth there are several worlds in WorldWind: Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter (with the four Galilean moons of Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto) and SDSS (imagery of stars and galactics). All these worlds are available in the File menu.
Users interact with the selected planet by rotating it, tilting the view, and zooming in and out. Five million placenames, political boundaries, latitude/longitude lines, and other location criteria can be displayed. WorldWind provides the ability to browse maps and geospatial data on the internet using the OGC's WMS servers (version 1.4 also uses WFS for downloading placenames), import ESRI shapefiles and kml/kmz files. This is an example of how WorldWind allows anyone to deliver their data.
Other features of WorldWind include support for .X (DirectX 3D polygon mesh) models and advanced visual effects such as atmospheric scattering or sun shading.
The resolution inside the US is high enough to clearly discern individual buildings, houses, cars (USGS Digital Ortho layer) and even the shadows of people (metroplitan areas in USGS Urban Ortho layer). The resolution outside the US is at least 15 meters per pixel.
Microsoft has allowed WorldWind to incorporate Virtual Earth high resolution data for non-commercial use[1].
WorldWind uses digital elevation model (DEM) data collected by NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. This means one can view topographic features such as the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in three dimensions. In addition, WW has bathymetry data which allows users to see ocean features, such as trenches and ridges, in 3D.
Many people using the applications are adding their own data and making them available through various sources, such as the WorldWind Central or blogs mentioned in the link section below.
All images and movies created with WorldWind using Blue Marble, Landsat, or USGS public domain data can be freely modified, re-distributed, and used on web sites, even for commercial purposes.
[edit] Add-ons and plugins
WorldWind can be expanded by using one of many add-ons - small extensions that add new functionality to the program.
Possible types of add-ons:
- Point layers - simple XML files displaying placemarks (point of interest) as icons
- Trail layers - paths (routes, boundaries)
- Line features - XML with a list of points visualized as a line or wall
- Polygon features - XML with a list of points visualized as a filled polygon (flat or extruded)
- Model features - XML used to load 3D textured meshes
- Place names - specific points (such as cities, hills and buildings) that are assigned text labels
- Image layers - high resolution imagery for various places in the world
- Scripts - files that control camera movement
Plugins are small programs written in C#, VB or J# which are loaded and compiled by WorldWind at startup. Plug-in developers can add features to WorldWind without changing the program's source code.
[edit] WorldWind Java
The original recipe for WorldWind was restricted to Windows, relying on the .NET libraries and DirectX. A new version of WorldWind has been developed in Java with JOGL referred to as WorldWind Java. This new version has an API-centric architecture with functionalities 'off-loaded' to modular components, leaving the API at the core. This makes WorldWind itself a plugin so that it can be used as interchangeably as possible (i.e. via Python). This refactoring exercise allows WorldWind to be accessed via a browser as a Java Applet. A preview of the WorldWind Java SDK[2] was released on May 11, 2007 during Sun Microsystem's annual JavaOne conference.
[edit] Forks and clones
- WW2D is cross-platform, free and open-source application based on Java and OpenGL technologies and can be run on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (x86 and x86-64) and Solaris on SPARC. WW2D uses images from WorldWind's servers.
- WW2D Plus One is an update to WW2D providing a 3D view.
- Punt is a fork of the NASA WorldWind project, and was started by two members of the free software community who had made contributions to WorldWind. Punt was based on the code in WorldWind 1.3.2, but its initial release has features not found in WorldWind 1.3.2 or 1.3.3 (such as support for multiple languages). Currently, Punt is only available for Windows, but long term goals include a desire to move to a cross-platform solution.
- Dapple is a fork of the NASA WorldWind project, it is an Open Source project created by developers at Geosoft. Dapple is aimed at geoscience professionals, and has features aimed at them, such as easy addition WMS servers and a simpler UI very similar to Google Earth's.
- SERVIR-VIZ is a customized version of WorldWind developed by IAGT for the SERVIR project.
[edit] Datasets available
Low resolution Blue Marble datasets are included with the initial download; as a user zooms in to certain areas, additional high resolution data is downloaded from the NASA servers. The size of all currently available data sets is about 4.6 terabytes.
[edit] Earth
- Animated data layers
- Scientific Visualization Studio
- MODIS
- GLOBE[3]
- NRL Real-Time Weather
- Image/terrain datasets
- Blue Marble Next Generation imagery
- Landsat 7 imagery
- USGS imagery
- Digital Ortho (DOQ - scanned black and white aerial images [1])
- Urban Area Ortho (montaged color aerial photography of many major US metropolitan areas)
- Topographic maps
- Zoomit! imagery (community produced layer)
- SRTM (SRTM30Plus[6]/SRTMv2/USGS NED) terrain data (includes bathymetry)
[edit] Extraterrestrial datasets
[edit] Moon
- Clementine (40xx - Colour, 30xx - Greyscale)
- Hypsometric Map
[edit] Mars
- MOC (Mars Global Surveyor - Mars Orbiter Camera)
- MOLA (MGS - Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter hypsometric map)
- THEMIS (Mars Odyssey - Thermal Emission Imaging System)
- MDIM (Viking - Mars Digital Image Model)
[edit] Venus
- Magellan Imaging Radar (Color/Greyscale)
- Hypsometric Map
[edit] Jupiter
- Jupiter
- Callisto
- Europa
- Ganymede
- Io
[edit] Sloan Digital Sky Survey
- Survey Imagery
- Footprint Imagery
- SDSS Footprint
- FIRST (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm [2]) Footprint
[edit] Specifications
- Baseline resolutions
- 500 m (Blue Marble Next Generation)
- 15 m (Landsat imagery; except for polar areas)
- Typical high resolutions
- U.S.
- New Zealand
- Zoomit! (from LINZ data): 2.5 m (colour and grayscale)
- Western Australia
- Zoomit! (from GSWA): 250K surface geology mosaic, 250K topographic data, Magnetic Intensity, Bouger Gravity
- South Africa
- Zoomit!: Robben Island 0.5 m
- Altitude resolution
- U.S.: 30 m (1 arcsecond; USGS NED)
- Global: 90 m (3 arcseconds; SRTM)
- Oceans: 2 arcminutes and better
- Age
- Some USGS aerial images were taken in the early 1990s.
- Landsat 7 images are all taken after 1999 (except for Geocover 1990).
[edit] See also
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: PD World Wind |
- Celestia
- Geodesy
- GeoServer
- Geoweb
- Google Earth
- Google Maps
- Marble (KDE)
- Stellarium
- TerraServer-USA
- Virtual Earth
- Web mapping
- Windows Live Local
- WorldWind Central
[edit] References
- ^ Virtual Earth plugin: http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/Virtual_Earth
- ^ WorldWind Java SDK: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/
- ^ GLOBE - World Wind Wiki
- ^ Land Information New Zealand's internet home page
- ^ Department of Industry and Resources - Geological Survey of Western Australia
- ^ Satellite Geodesy, IGPP, SIO, UCSD | Global Topography | SRTM30, Multibeam, & predicted
- ^ List of covered cities: http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/USGS_Urban_Areas
- ^ ZoomIt! - Areas and dates: http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/Add-on:ZoomIt%21
[edit] External links
- NASA WorldWind homepage
- NASA WorldWind Java homepage
- RIACS WorldWind homepage
- Punt Homepage
- WW2D (SourceForge)
- WW2D Plus One
- Dapple
- SERVIR Viz
[edit] Community
- WorldWind Central
- WorldWind Forums
- WorldWind Hotspots User Maintained directory of places, images & links to view within NASA WorldWind
[edit] Add-ons
- Add-ons & Plugins download, use or create add-ons
- WorldWind Data cache packs for offline use
- WorldWind add-ons
[edit] News
- The Earth Is Square source of news about WW from one of the developers
- Bull's Rambles open source community project manager's blog
- The Confused Life WW developer's blog
[edit] Education
- WorldWind Classroom - Online labs and educational resources using WorldWind
[edit] Misc
- Collection of video clips showing WorldWind
- Comparison of Google Earth and WorldWind
- Free Software Foundation's take on the NOSA
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