One more thing that can reduce the downloading time is choosing not to show computer generated images of buildings. These can appear when you are viewing buildings and similar objects in 3D. The procedure for doing so is as given below.

Open Live Search Maps

Then open Virtual Earth 3D if you have already installed it. However, if you have not done so, you can install it now. Live Search Maps will guide you over the installation.

a) Then go to the view controls and there choose the option 3D.

b) Then click the options button from the upper lift side of the Live Search Maps webpage.

c) Then in the Performance settings tab, choose the setting according to your choice from the Detail setting section. You can view a complete description of each setting by just clicking on the setting.

d) You can choose whether you want to view the 3D buildings on the 3D maps, or not. For this check or uncheck the check box named Show buildings.

e) Then in the box named Maximum disk cache size in megabytes, ensure that the maximum disk cache size does not exceed the available free space on your hard disk. In the box, the cache size is specified and it is a positive number only.

f) Then lastly click OK twice, on after the other.

Notes:

The three-dimensional data is available for the whole world. However, ht e3D views of buildings are not available for all parts of the world. If you want to know about the cities for which the 3D buildings are available, you can check at the “Current 3D Cities website”. Remember that this website is available only in English.

Changing the map views

With Live Search Maps, you can choose whether you want to view the maps in the road view or the aerial view. For some places around the world, you can also choose to view them in bird’s eye views. If you want that the names of roads and highways should appear, in the aerial or birds eye views, you can use the option add labels.

Road: The road views are the maps of streets, and highways. They also outline neighborhoods, boundaries, cities and some other features.

Aerial: these are the views in which you see the photomaps of buildings, and geographical features as well.

Bird’s eye: The bird’s eye views are like aerial photos. They are called birds eye views because in them you view different places, as they would appear to a bird that is flying over that place.

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The server sends imagery to its users by compressing it from gigabytes to many hundred megabytes. Even after the images are compressed to several hundred megabytes, the bandwidth needed for the server will be quite large. Even if this task is achieved somehow, the internet connection of most users is not that fast to update data every hour. However for MODIS, Global Clouds are frequently updated, hence they can be referred as real time images.

What is the problem with colors for new Landsat. Why isn't my area covered?

NLT landsat was made with the intention of offering more colors to images. The quality of new Landsat is not that high when compared to original landsat dataset. However, most locations are covered at 30m/pixel resolution.

How to load 0.25 m resolution in the same manner in which screenshot of DC is displayed as a sample?

For doing so, select Layer manager. Then click on images and then choose USGS Urban Area Ortho. An alternate way to do the same task is by clicking on USGS urban button.

Why is that only white tile appearing when trying to view the USGS Urban data?

Currently urban data is unavailable for all categories. That is why there is a possibility that these images are unavailable for your town. Therefore, you should first check whether your town is listed in urban area list or teraserver website. If your town is not listed then you will only see white green patch on screen. You can also use the urban layer highlighter for locating areas.

How are USGS layers used?

USGS dataset is United States Geological survey. That is why you can obtain images only for United States. However, such data available for other regions in most cases is not free. Hence, NASA does not include them in World Wind.

Why is SRTM feature of NASA World Wind not working as expected?

This can occur because of several factors. In case the area is flat, then probably you are looking an area that is below or above 60 degree latitude. For these areas, you will not find any elevation data if the satellite has taken images for regions that are around equator. On the other hand, latitudes above 60 degrees are too extreme; hence, recent data is unavailable for them.

However if you are viewing inside 60 degrees then probably the data for that region is taken using bats echolocation or sonar measurements. In such cases, elevation is sounded from satellite.

In order to install NASA World Wind, what should be the system configuration?

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Google has resolved inaccuracies in vector mapping service since the release of this software. An example of inaccuracy was the absence of Nunavut territory of Canada. The territory was created in April 1, 1999. These mistakes were rectified by data updates in 2006. Recent updates have increased coverage of detailed photography, especially in areas of eastern and Western Europe, however not including Ireland, as imagery here, remains extremely limited.

Not all images are taken at the same time. They are current to within 2 to 3 years. Sometimes the images are incorrectly stitched together. You will notice updates to photographic database only when there are drastic changes in the appearance of landscape. Place names and road details vary from one place to another. They are very accurate in Europe and North America but good news is that regular mapping updates are now improving coverage elsewhere.

Sometimes errors occur because of the technology that is used for measuring the height of the terrain. For instance, tall buildings cause one part of a place to be rendered as small mountains, when in fact it is small. Height of Eiffel tower creates a very similar effect in rendering of Paris.

Elevations that are below sea level are sometimes listed as sea level. For instance, California, Death Valley, and Dead Sea are all presented as 0 m, however salton city is about 38 m below sea level, dead valley is approximately, -86 m and Dead Sea is -421 m. However, the Google Earth team has now rectified these mistakes. In addition, when Google Earth was launched, some steep mountain ridges were appearing in an incorrect manner as their shadows were extending south facing sides. However, with time these problems were corrected.

The measure function of Google Earth shows length of equator to be 40030.24 kms but the actual length of the equator is about 40075.02 km. The error is about -0.112% which is negligible. On 16 December, Antarctica was updated to a resolution of 15 m using imagery from Landsat image mosaic. Arctic polar ice cap that is presently missing from current version of Google Earth will soon be added. Google Earth shows accurate details in most land areas.

The software also provides accurate information of military and other critical installations, thereby posing a threat to security. That is why Google Earth has been criticized by many special interest groups that include national officials. Serious concerns are expressed over high resolution pictures and images of sensitive locations that are easily available on Google Earth. Due to pressure from these sites, Google has decided to censor these sites.

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Using Earth browser, you will be able to investigate, explore, and research information about entire world. It is perfect for classroom settings and home study. With Earth browser, you will not only create and load information but also share it with your family and friends in standard KML format. See high satellite images of various geographical features such as mountains and icebergs using this amazing program.

Earth browser has an embedded web browser that can be used to find location based information. You can create and share your own place marks, photos, and web links. Earth Browser is indeed a beautiful 3D view of the globe that is stitched together from satellite images. This 3D representation of the earth rotates on a black background and you can zoom in to get considerable surface detail of planet Earth.

Political boundaries, country labels, plate boundaries, and a co-ordinate grid provide some of three features of an atlas but this satellite program is much more than a traditional atlas. When it is connected to the internet, the software dynamically updates itself by accessing many of the online databases. Using these databases, it can display real time, detailed information that includes recent earthquakes, active volcanoes, icebergs, tropical storms, and precise weather station data. The information is hyperlinked to appropriate website.

In addition, you will also find links to various web cams, which provide good quality images and are sited in many interesting locations. Realistic Earth shadows and city lights complete the simulation.

You will absolutely have no problem installing this software on a Windows computer with broadband connection. A Mac version of this software is also available. In case you face any problem after installing the software, which is very rare, you can simply reset the database to cure all the problems. You can reset the database by holding down the CTRL key and then clicking the image.

Practically speaking the program is intuitive with context sensitive labels and hints guiding the way. As resolution is gradually, increased features including country labels become visible. Students will require few minutes to get familiar with this software. The program contains a user manual and also a help menu. Technical support is also available and is efficient. Therefore, if you have any problem with the program, you can contact the technical support team and the solution will be provided within a short time.

If your PC is slow, then Earth browser may not work properly. You can always try the free trial version of this software and then go for the license versions, which cost only a few dollars. There is not much difference between the free trial and licensed version. Once you pay the registered fee, you can zoom in to see higher resolutions and access all the features of the software including plate boundaries and web cams.

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For displaying results that including MapCruncher Beta (for Microsoft Virtual Earth layers) click on items having MapCruncher Beta layers button.

Tags and tagging

whenever anybody searches the local listing center for collections, users can search using some keyword. Therefore it is important to tag your collection with appropriate keyword which you think would be used by others during searching for a collection.

You collection will be easy to search for others if you tag it with a tag that describes it. For example if you create collection about hotels, you can tag it with. The procedure for adding tags to your collection is given below.

1. Access Live Search Maps using your Windows Live ID.

2. Then choose the option collections from the toolbar. From the further options which show up choose, Open your collections.

3. Then choose the collection which you want to add a tag to.

4. Then click the option, and then click.

5. Then go to the Tags box and there type the keywords which you want to add to your collection. Remember to separate two keywords with a comma.

6. Lastly, click.

Some tips for tagging you collections

a) Associate at least three tags with each collection. It is better if you add more.

b) Use both specific as well as general keywords while tagging. For example for a collection about roses, include the general keywords like gardening and flowers as well.

c) Use synonyms. They may be used by people during their search for collections. Therefore think of all possible synonyms which can be used by them and add all of them. For example if you are tagging a collection about carpets, you could include the synonyms like rugs, etc.

d) Tags are not case sensitive, however be careful about your spellings.

Live Search Maps code of conduct

Restricted uses

There are some rules for using Live Search Maps. You should follow them strictly. If you violate any of the conditions from the Live Search Maps code of conduct, it may cause termination of your access to Live Search Maps services or even deletion of content without any notice.

You are not permitted to post, upload, transfer, transmit, distribute, disseminate, or facilitate distribution of content which may be in the form of text, sound, data, images, information, or software which,

a) Is, provokes, or advocates pornography, vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, bigotry, hatred, gratuitous violence, or racism.

c) It creates or makes available links to external sites violating Live Search Maps code of conduct.

d) Has something which can harm or exploit minors any how.

e) Something which is aimed to collect or solicit personally any one under the age of 13 years. This includes but is not limited to his or her name, home address, email address, name of their school, parents, etc, and their phone number.

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This visualization system helps in monitoring environment of number of countries. It also helps to combat catastrophic events that include floods, earthquakes, and wildfires. It improves land in use. Additionally it also helps to accurately forecast weather conditions. Servir Viz online maps contain geospatial data. These geospatial maps contain links for applications. Users can easily identify these images and GIS layers. This is essential for displaying data products of Servir Viz. This satellite program also offers customization. This is possible by combining different layers of Servir Viz.

The satellite program makes use of real data files. Lists of various map servers are in these files. These applications are not at all complex and can easily run on different web servers. There is absolutely no need to download these applications. Servir Viz's allows you to view and locate images.

The Servir's climate change project is giving climate change scenarios in detail of Mesoamerica for many years. The main goal of this project is to make aware of the negative impact of climate change and the catastrophic events that may occur due to climate change.

Servir Viz's resource monitoring is supported well by its real time imagery and interactive maps. For instance, these maps could be climate maps, water maps, food maps, energy and agriculture maps and land cover maps. These maps are useful to provide information and are highly interactive.

As climate change affects human resources that include food products, land and water, therefore Servir Viz's resource monitoring is used for getting most important information and the impact of these resources on humans. Resource monitoring also includes monitoring catastrophic events such as earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, and floods.

Images of this high technology tool are taken by geostationary satellites. You can easily find flood information on Servir Viz by typing the keyboard 'flood' on Servir Viz data portal. This will provide historical information on floods. This information related to floods can be accessed from Servir Viz's data portal. These products can be easily downloaded in PDF format. Other products for earthquakes are also available. These products are helpful for future forecasting.

The real time weather forecast feature of Servir Viz provides latest weather information to its users. By using keywords, users can easily find weather forecasts on Servir Viz data portal. This portal also gives real time maps services that can be easily downloaded.

Servir Viz is useful to detect devastating events. It is collaborated with other companies to give near real time images. These images have helped to predict hurricanes accurately.

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KML i.e. keyhole markup language, is a type of file format used to display geographical data in a search system that includes Google Earth. This language interface is based on XML which has nested attributes and elements.

How to create KML files?

KML files are created using three main tools:

1] Google Earth: This is a very important tool used for creating KML files. With the help of Google Earth, it is possible to create paths, place marks, polygons and many more. When you create any of these objects, you will have to right click on the object in “Places” pane and then choose the option “Copy”. After copying, you will have to paste it into an XML editor or a text editor and then start editing it.

2] Text Editor: When an object is created in Google Earth, you will have to paste it into the text editor and then start editing it.

3] XML editor: KML is a XML language that is used to describe geographic content. This fancy text editor provides lot of tools to create XML documents that include tag completion, which ensures that KML elements are closed with proper close tags.

Who uses KML?

KML community is varied and wide as you will be able to see when you visit KML community forum. It is found that casual users do create KML files for documenting journeys, to place marks homes and for planning cycling ventures and cross country hikes. Scientists make use of KML files to give detailed mappings of models, resources and weather patterns, volcanic eruptions, mineral deposits and earthquake activity. City development agencies, architects, and real estate professionals make use of KML to propose and visualize construction plans. Teachers as well as students make use of KML for exploring places, events, and people, both current and historic. Organizations such as UNESCO, National Geographic, and Smithsonian have used KML for displaying their global data.

Why is that my KML files are not downloading properly from the web server?

Web servers must be told what type of file they are providing. There are browsers such as the Firefox browser, which makes guesses on the type of file. The internet explorer and other browsers completely depend on MIME type settings of web server. If you are managing your web server then you must modify your own configuration. Or else you will have to contact the concerned website hosting service to make those changes.

How are KML files opened?

A KMZ file is a compressed set of files for viewing in the Google Earth. These files are compressed by using zip format that can be opened with common zip tools such as “WinZip” or the compressed Folders tool of Windows XP or “zip” for Linux or Mac OS. You may have to modify the *.kmz file extension to .zip so that any zip tool will recognize the file. For using the file, you will have to change the extension back to *.kmz.

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Using this software, you can visualize some interesting events of our planet including volcanoes and wildfires from millions of images that are required by Landsat satellite during thirty years of flight. This software application has the ability to take you to any place on Earth, inside Yosemite Valley, over the Rockies or through the Grand Canyon.

With its amazing features, you can explore the world virtually. If your personal computer is equipped with this new program then various locations and cities around the world are just a mouse click away. NASA World Wind is providing terabytes of NASA satellite data. The data is the result of years of observations of precipitation, barometric pressure, temperature and much more. This free software program has been acquired via the internet by many people from more than hundred nations.

Developers of World Wind are also trying to increase the server capability so that it can easily meet the heavy demand by users for data. In addition to World wind, the program can also access topographic maps and aerial photography of United States Geological Survey (USGS). It is estimated that there are more than 10000 daily users of NASA World Wind. If you are thinking of downloading NASA World Wind, you should visit learn.arc.NASA.gov.

NASA Technologies program will also establish an agreement so that the software can be used by schools from other countries. An international act will be signed soon between United Kingdom, Australia and NASA for developing a 10th grade, 10 week curriculum on 'Origin of Life' that is based on NASA World Wind and any other learning technology tools of NASA.

'Sea breeze', a World Wind add on is very popular. It includes more than 600 maps that cover nearly 50 chemical, biological, and physical parameters of our world's seas and oceans. It allows users to visualize complex processes of the Earth's climatic change. It is developed to provide a reference source for oceanographic data. If your computer has a video card along with 3D acceleration, then you can benefit most from this software. Most computers today have a built in graphics card. NASA World wind is compatible with number of video cards including S3, SIS, Intel, ATI and many more. If your video card is not compatible with NASA World Wind, the software will not work with your computer's graphics card. The software requires that your computer has DirectX and runtime environment installed.

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a) Invades anybody's privacy by trying to collect store, harvest or publish his or her personal or personally identifiable information, like passwords, credit card numbers addresses, account information, or other contact information, without their permission or knowledge.

b) Or is illegal and violates any type of applicable law i.e. local or international. These include, but not are not limited to, child pornography laws, bestiality, illegal drugs, incest, harassment and software piracy.

c) Or threatens, defames degrades, intimidates, stalks, defrauds, or victimizes a person or a group of people. This may be for any reasons, like but not limited to, age disability, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, religion or race, or encourages or incites anybody else to do so.

d) Or disrupts, harms, or intends to disrupt or harm any other user's computer, or allowing yourself or others to illegally access software or bypass security for websites or servers. This also includes but is not limited to spamming.

e) Or tries to impersonate an employee of Microsoft Corporation or its agent, host moderator, manager, administrator, or any other user or person through any means.

f) Or facilitates or promotes purchasing or sale of ammunition or firearms.

g) Or has or can be considered as “Junk Mail”, “Pyramid Schemes”, “spam”, “Affiliate marketing or unsolicited commercial advertisements.

h) Or mischaracterizes content which you upload or post, or has the same or similar content to which you have already posted.

i) Or tries other manipulate the services which also include reputation systems in the services and ranking, by violating any of the provision of Live Search Maps code of conduct., or colluding with others for using multiple profiles or voting.

j) Or provides for making an international money transfer for amounts more than the actual price for an item, with an intention for requesting a refund of any part of the payment.

k) Or has advertisement for money making schemes, credit counseling, discount cards, online contests or online surveys.

In the same way you should also not use any form of automated computer program or device which enables, submitting postings without having express written permissions from Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft reserves the rights and has its sole discretion can, without any obligation, review or remove service and content created by users, at will and that without notice. It can delete content as well as accounts. It also reserves the rights, at its sole discretion for banning participants or terminating their access to services.

Rights and Responsibilities

Whenever you use Live Search Maps, you get both, rights as well as some responsibilities. You should abide by both of them. Live Search Maps encourages you not to share information with others as it can harm you. It also encourages parents to be aware that and control the content posted and activities of their children so that they remain safe online.

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In the upper left corner, you will find a small control panel that lets you determine what kind of data the globe should display. For instance, you will be able to view wildfires, earthquakes, buoys, earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, cloud weather, and other weather conditions. You can also decide whether your map should show names of oceans and countries. Click on appropriate globe icons and you will get to know more about informational websites. Zoom tools of Earth browser will provide a closer look of a specific location.

One major advantage of installing this software on your computer is that it does not consume lot of energy when it is running in background. Therefore, it is suitable for people who have powerful computers. However, you may not be able to access its forbidden features. Therefore, anyone who wants to keep an eye on what is happening on their planet should go for Earth browser. This 3 dimensional globe is easy to navigate. An important feature of Earth browser is that it provides live weather that very few software programs provide. Also featured are current cloud formations and live Earthquakes.

Version 2.5 of Earth browser increases resolution nearly by 4 times. It has also added Antarctica iceberg tracking, live ocean buoy data for Europe and North America. It also daily adds North American fire hotspots. It also fixes a bug that is causing a failure to connect.

Earth browser is very easy to use and generally, you will not face any problem using it. However if any problems occur they can be easily resolved. Real time imagery and interactive maps are simply amazing. These maps provide lot of useful information.

Many people ask what to do if Earth browser crashes. In that case, you just have to hold the control key down and then select “Reset database” from File menu. The database of this search system will reset. If you are still unable to launch earth browser, then immediately press 'a' key after launching it. A very important thing to note is that you may loose any settings or data, which you have not saved. This problem can also occur if the internet is not connected. Therefore, in case the Earth browser crashes, check whether the internet is connected.

Another common problem that most user face is the screen turns black when trying to run this software on Windows. This can happen if your machine has new version of QuickTime. This problem occurs if there are problems in quick time itself. As it continuously updates global information, earth browser is often referred as real time 3 dimensional model of planet Earth. You can rotate and magnify to give a close up of the earth.

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