- Posted by sondreb on May 1, 2007
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Update for the incredible NASA World Wind was released earlier this year. In case you don't already know what NASA World Wind is, it's an free and open source tool that gives you access to a huge amount of satellite imagery, weather data and research data. It can in some ways be compared to Google Earth, which has more consumer/travel/tourist features and focus. NASA World Wind has a more research focus than Google's alternative.
The first view you are presented with when you launch the new World Wind is the incredible blue marble look of our precious planet Earth. The first thing you should do in this new version, is hit the View menu option and turn on both Sun Shading (CTRL+S) and Atmospheric Scattering (CTRL+A). Then you open up the Time Controller on the toolbar and hit play! Make sure you turn up the speed, and you will see a beautiful simulated sun rolling around planet Earth.
When you do this, you can zoom down into your favorite region, like the example below which is from the Norwegian fjords in the western part of Norway. The first capture is from the sunset looking straight at the sun, the second is from the side where you can see how beautiful it looks when the sun hits the mountain tops.
The second captures shows how the sunrise looks in the same region. The screenshots does not justify the feeling and experience you get from watching this being rendered live on your own computer. Make sure you download NASA World Wind 1.4 and try it out for yourself!
There are just to many great features in NASA World Wind for me to explain everything in this blog post. But make sure you watch this video that demonstrates some of the new features in version 1.4.
Before I close this post, you should know that you can also view Jupiter, Mars, Moon, Venus and the Universe all from the same application. NASA World Wind is an open source project built on .NET Framework using C# and Managed DirectX.
Beware: By installing this application, you might end up using all your free (and work) time looking at the beautiful universe that surrounds us on this tiny planet.