Features of NASA World Wind
3D engine
With world wind, you can zoom in at any point on earth. This has been possible because of the leveraging of the high-resolution imagery from LandSat satellite and SRTM elevation data. This also makes it possible to view a 3D and almost real imagery of any region of earth. You will feel as if you are really there are watching those places with your own eyes.
Moreover, as the focus was on the common people, viewing i.e. browsing through this imagery is very simple. You can do so with your mouse as well. The simplified menu will provide you easy access to several features.
However, there are two things that you should note. World wind was designed to be used on pc with recent configuration and it should have the 3D hardware acceleration on it. You can check the requirements at the download section. If your computer lacks something, you should get it installed on it before you download NASA World Wind.
Blue marble
Blue marble is the data set of imagery obtained from the blue marble. Blue marble is a space observatory of NASA and it takes images of earth. The important aspect of this imagery is that, it is true colored and therefore it makes it possible to view the places in their real color.
When this imagery is combined with the data from the other sources, i.e. the MODIS and Terra, you get the true colored images of earth at a resolution that is as high as 1 Km per pixel.
Land Sat 7
This is the data set of imagery obtained from the LandSat 7 satellite. This imagery is much more detailed than the blue marble and it provides the minute details when you zoom in on any point on the map. This imagery is fairly recent one it was taken between the years 1999 to 2003. The resolution is 15 meters per pixel.
This imagery is not true colored but it features the other color bands like the infrared band, etc. this imagery is still being updated by NASA World Wind. Therefore, any changes the region will get incorporated in it and you can know about the changes taking place.
The LandSat data is available for most parts of earth and therefore this data set is very vast. It cannot fit on the limited memory that a personal computer has. Therefore, when you are viewing this imagery NASA World Wind will download only what you see on the screen. NASA World Wind also compresses the imagery and stores it in to the cache of your computer. Thus, you can also view it later.
SRTM
This is a dataset, which contains the data obtained form the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. It presents a fully interactive model of the several parts of earth. When you are viewing these models, you will feel as if you are flying over these regions just like birds. Moreover, these imagers can be exaggerated and therefore you can even view the details as well.
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