Installing NASA World Wind
NASA World Wind is available as an open source software, which runs on windows framework. As it is an open source software, anybody can download install and use it. The latest version available in these days is the version 1.4.0. Some more features have been added in to this version.
For downloading and installing NASA World Wind, there are some requirements. However, these are simple and most users these days have such systems. These requirements are needed by NASA World Wind to run and function properly.
The system requirements are given under
a)You should have a computer having an operating system stick windows 2000, or more advanced than it does. However, note that NASA World Wind was not designed for windows vista. Note that at this moment NASA World Wind does not support Linux or Macintosh.
b)Then you should have a 3D graphics card as the images provided by NASA World Wind also feature 3D graphics.
c)An internet connection is the basic requirement of NASA World Wind.
In addition to these system requirements, the computer should have Mircrosoft.NET2.0 and Microsoft Managed DirectX9.0c. The installer of your computer should be capable of detecting and installing both these software by default. However, you himself as well can manually install these if he thinks that there is an error. In such a case, he should first install .Net and then DirectX.
The minimum configurations without which you will not be able to install NASA World Wind are as given below.
a)The computer on which is about to install NASA World Wind should have minimum 500 MHz CPU.
b) It should have a RAM of minimum 128 MB. In addition to this RAM, the computer should also have a free disk space of about 500 MB. However, in this case note that the default cache size of NASA World Wind is 2GB. Therefore, you should reduce his cache. This can be done easily.
This much configuration will be able to run NASA World Wind. However to run it at its best the following configuration is recommended by NASA World Wind. This configuration is required for the additional features as atmospheric scattering and sun shading
A CPU of at least 1.4GHz,
a RAM of minimum 256 MB,
a free disk space of about 3GB,
and, at least a DSL or Cable connection.
A user having a computer with all these requirements can download NASA World Wind by clicking on the download button on its official website. The download does not take much time and is simple.
However, note that the Blue marble is not included in the installer to reduce the size of initial download. Nevertheless, it will be downloaded as you uses NASA World Wind.
Even though, installation is simple and takes place quickly some problems can occur. Most of the times, they arise because your machine lacks something.
One of the common errors is Fatal Error dialog box. In such a case, you should try to set the display to either 16 or 32-bit color. It has been reported that this issue occurs if the display is either 24 bit or 32 bit. The 16-bit color display works fine. Alternatively, the graphic card as well can give rise to this problem. Therefore, you should check that as well.
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