Imagery And Analysis

[SOC]

NASA's World Wind program is an application similar in concept and design to Google Earth. You have a 3D model of the Earth that you can rotate and zoom in on to browse imagery. There are a number of different sets of imagery, including LANDSAT and USGS coverage, which are accessed by selecting certain tabs at the top of the screen.

World Wind is a useful tool, and is most valuable for browsing areas in the United States not covered by Google Earth in higher resolution. The USGS imagery, for example, is black and white, but is still a far cry better than the baseline Google Earth low-resolution (and full color) imagery.

Google Earth .kml files can be imported into World Wind as well, a useful feature for comparing imagery of areas of interest.

The obligatory "screen capture" feature which makes my blog happen is also present.

For those of us of a more astronautical tilt, the 3D globe can even be loaded with imagery from select celestial bodies as well, including the Moon, simply with the touch of a button.

Be warned though, World Wind will eat up your CPU's performance and for some reason won't run while Google Earth is open! All in all it is still a very interesting and useful application.

Download World Wind here: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/download.html

[Norfolk]

Nice piece of Kit, SOC. Much obliged.