NASA World Wind |
World Wind is a virtual globe developed by NASA for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows. It overlays NASA satellite imagery and United States Geological Survey aerial photography over 3D models of the Earth, and, having been recently added, Mars (planet) and the Moon.
The user can interact with the selected planet by rotating it and zooming in and out. An overlay of placenames and political boundaries is available. The software also contains a package to browse maps and other imagery on the internet using the OpenGIS Web Mapping Service.
=Datasets available=
Low resolution The Blue Marble datasets are included with the initial Uploading and downloading; as a user zooms in to certain areas, additional high resolution data is downloaded from the NASA servers. The size of all currently available data sets is about 4.6 terabytes.
= Specifications =
=Additional layers=
Additional data that can be projected onto the globe includes country borders, place names, and lines of latitude and longitude.
One of these layers, Wikipedia , available as an add-on, gives points of interest, with click-through links connected to Wikipedia. This example shows the Washington DC National Mall, with each ring representing a link to an article:
=Competitor=
, with all its data (3D buildings, maps, street plans) and code being copyrighted.
NASA World Wind will always remain free and to date all add-ons and plugins are freely available whereas Google Earth has additional services such as global positioning system navigation for which it charges.
= See also =
= External links =
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