Before you start using NASA World Wind
For those interested in knowing the various geographical features of our planet in depth should think of installing NASA World Wind. However, make sure that your machine has Windows operating system. The first version of this software was publicly released in 2004. Its latest version is version 1.4. This amazing program will surely leave you spellbound.
NASA World Wind software comes without paying a single penny. This program not only delivers accurate directions for locating places of interest but also gives more focus on natural and political aspects of planet Earth such as weather patterns, tectonic plates, borders, and topography.
This virtual globe is easily available to common users. It has been designed to be used on personal machines, which has Windows operating system. This program is developed by open source community and NASA. The program brings imagery or data from different sources such as USGS satellite, NASA, topography maps, aerial photography, and GIS data that is publicly available on 3D models of planet Earth.
Besides Earth, you will also other worlds in NASA World Wind that include Jupiter, Mars, Moon and Venus. Apart from these, you will also be able to view the Galilean moons of Europe and Ganymede. You will also find imagery of stars in this satellite program. The options to choose all these are easily available in file menu.
You can also interact with planet Earth by rotating it and then tilting the view. You can also zoom in to get a detail view of a particular location. These views show more than 5 million place names, longitude/latitude lines, political boundaries and other location criteria. All these things are displayed on the images. Using NASA World, you can also browse through geospatial data and maps on the internet. This feature is provided by using WMS and OGC's servers.
The resolution of some cities in America is so high that individual cars, buildings, and houses can be clearly seen. This is possible due to USGS digital ortho layer. The resolution is higher in metro areas and you can easily distinguish and identify shadows of people. This is possible due to USGS Urban Ortho layer. Even outside regions are covered with a minimum 15m per pixel resolution. Other features of NASA World Wind support advanced visual effects that include atmospheric scattering and sun scattering.
World Wind has gained rights for incorporating virtual Earth very high resolution data strictly for non-commercial purposes. World wind uses digital elevation model data. Using this data, you can see views of various topographic features such as Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in 3 dimensions. It also provides bathymetry data by which users are able to view ocean features like ridges, trenches and many more in 3D.
Using this software, users can add their own data and make this data available to other people through sources such as World Wind blogs. This program permits its users to freely redistribute, modify images and movies, which you can easily create with the help of its features.
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