NASA World Wind

World Wind is open source Windows software that lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.1

Description

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World Wind is a free open source virtual globe developed by NASA and the open source community for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows. The program overlays NASA and USGS satellite imagery, aerial photography, topographic maps and publicly available GIS data on 3D models of the Earth.

Users interact with the world by rotating it, tilting the view, and zooming in and out. Five million placenames, political boundaries, latitude/longitude lines, and other location criteria can be displayed. World Wind provides the ability to browse maps and geospatial data on the internet using the OGC's WMS servers and WFS for downloading placenames, import ESRI shapefiles and kml/kmz files.

The resolution is at least 15 meters per pixel.

World Wind uses digital elevation model (DEM) data collected by NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. This means one can view topographic features such as the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in three dimensions. In addition, WW has bathymetry data which allows users to see ocean features, such as trenches and ridges, in 3D.3

Datasets available4

Image/terrain datasets:

• Blue Marble Next Generation imagery
• Landsat 7 imagery
  • NLT Landsat (Visible & Pseudo Colour)
  • Geocover 1990 & 2000 (pseudo; 1990 layer was produced from Landsat 4 & 5 images)
  • OnEarth (visible & pseudo)
  • i-cubed (visible)
• Zoomit! imagery (community produced layer)
  • LINZ[2] (montaged colour aerial photography of New Zealand)
  • GSWA[3] (Topographic and geological maps of Western Australia)
• SRTM (SRTM30Plus[4]/SRTMv2/USGS NED) terrain data (includes bathymetry)

Animated data layers:

• Scientific Visualization Studio
• MODIS
• GLOBE
• NRL Real-Time Weather

Function

• Visualisation tools
  • Maps

Why use this tool?

• To present geographically based scientific information on a dynamic image of the world
• World Wind has a more scientific function than Google Earth

Who will use this tool?

• Data users
  • Expert
  • Interest groups
  • General public

How will the tool be used?

• Uses online data, and requires a high bandwidth
• Desktop application on Windows
• User input required

Where in the data chain could this tool be used?

• User’s machine

When could this tool be used?

• At the time of a user request
• As a post process, after data is with the user

Availability

• NASA World Wind: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
• World Wind FAQ: http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/World_Wind_FAQ
• NASA Open Source: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind-nosa-1.3.html
• Some images are copyright: http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/Copyright_Questions_When_Using_Images_From_World_Wind
• Cost: Free
• Data can be freely modified, redistributed and used on web sites.5

Comments

This is a geographic viewer with similarities and comparisons with Google Earth.

Which is better, Google Earth or World Wind?

Both NASA World Wind and Google Earth are sophisticated programs with amazing feature sets, and they both have features that the other would benefit from. Despite how similar both programs seem they are not entirely comparable due to significantly different focuses, development history and philosophies. Many people use both programs depending on what they wish to accomplish. 6