Significant World Wind Plug-ins
WorldWind NASA has become such powerful and robust system due to its plug-ins and Add-ons. Moreover, you can add great features by creating your own Add-ons according to your need. To upgrade your desktop WorldWind application you need save new add-ons in your desktop application. To add new features don’t download the upgraded version but just get plug-in directory zip file from WorldWind NASA website. Unzip and save this file on your desktop copy of WorldWind NASA. Create a directory structure in Program files like NASA/WorldWind/Plug-in folder. You will get the added plug-ins from the site. All new add-ons will work efficiently on any lower version.
User can cut portion of terrain and view the 3D cut out in the separate window with the help of 3D cross Section plug-in. The window you open to see expanded view is called ‘terrain viewer’. It gives ability to save the cross sections and it gets reloads later. This plug-in also give color scales, shadows, light to the extracted view. You will get detailed information about terrain viewer plug-in from the WorldWind website itself. The most important part is terrain extraction which was developed by Erik Newman. Anyone can handle the application easily with mouse and keyboard. Short-cut keys are provided on the site.
Most amazing plug-in in the latest version of WorldWind NASA is Lens Flare plug-in. You can experience the flare effect on the globe when the sun is visible. It gives several setting view chooses from ‘outrageously bold’ to ‘simple soft’. It even provides advanced options to customize each graphic part of preset. This plug-in has been developed by Stephan Mantler. He managed to extend the number of sprites and textures used. You can take screen shots like sunrise over the Mount Everest, sunrise over the globe or even outrageous sunset. Previous presets are intact which you can view it as earlier.
Big Screenshots allow you to save current screen image. It is saved in 2x or 3x which is better for any resolution printing. You can take picture with 5 mega pixels digital camera. Full screen picture will produce 7 mega pixels images. If you wish to take panoramic view then you simply need to shrink your WorldWind window vertically. This will give you wide rectangle and horizontal field is automatically widened with the help of big screenshot plug-in. However, 3 x magnifiers will give ground terrain picture and not sky, stars, atmosphere. You can use the plug-in 1.3.5 or any 1.4 version of WorldWind NASA application.
Planetary ring will add different rings around the globe including Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune. These rings textures can be assembled by Pangloss. You can make appropriate setting to ‘rings textures’. The shadows you see can be turned on or off which changes the entire look of the images. One more advantage is you can change the sun orientation that will enable you to see different phases or seasons in the year. Take screenshots of the pictures like Saturn and rings with shadows, Saturn and rings etc which you can use in your application.
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