Get a closer look at Mount Fuji without ever leaving your PC. NASA has launched software that zooms around the globe, dives to the surface, and tracks fires, floods, and storms. Now you can take it for a spin. World Wind is an open source app that stitches together 10 terabytes of Earth imagery, then displays it on demand. Pull way back for a classic view of our big blue marble, or push in for a detailed peek at your street. When project manager Patrick Hogan unleashed World Wind, one of NASA’s servers collapsed under a deluge of download requests - 100,000 a day - and the service went offline. This spring, it’s back, with a bigger server. NASA and friends are working on next-gen features, from plotting hiking trails to mapping US census data. Wired journeyed from the US to Asia. Where will you go?
1. Earth and the California coast
Blue Marble, NASA’s famous composite image of a cloudless globe from space, was made to be viewed in 3-D, not flattened and taped to a classroom wall. World Wind software lets you zoom in for a closer satellite view, like this one of the California coast. "Blue Marble 2.0," under development at NASA’s Earth Observatory, will refresh to show the changing seasons.
2. San Francisco
Zoom all the way down to street level via aerial photos (with 1-square-meter resolution) from the USGS. Point and click to grab GPS coordinates. Here’s 37.780834197998 latitude, -122.395805358887 longitude: Wired HQ.
3. Grand Canyon
World Wind’s marriage of Landsat 7 satellite pics and elevation data from space shuttle radar offer an unmatched tour of the planet’s physical features. So level off and fly over the Grand Canyon.
4. Glacier Bay
During World Wind’s downtime, NASA engineers tweaked its 3-D engine to double or triple landscape detail. Next, they will extend that map to the ocean floor, so you can soar over the peaks of Alaska’s Glacier Bay and dive to the bottom of the frigid Pacific.
5. Mount Fuji
Here’s the approach into Tokyo, only better than a window seat. Get to Mount Fuji faster than the bullet train, then peer into the crater.
6. Pyongyang, North Korea
North Korea won’t give you a visa, but you can still have a look at the DMZ and pay a visit to dictator Kim Jong Il. The program hints at a future of ever more open, detailed, and interactive access to far corners of the world - in real time.
7. Sumatra
Head to the lowlands of Sumatra, Indonesia, which were devastated by the December tsunami. You can call up detailed background data on the Aceh region, from rainfall to maps of earthquake epicenters going back decades.
8. The Aceh Coast
World Wind can search for NASA images of natural disasters just hours after they occur. It can also call up older pictures. These shots taken before and after the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in December document the destruction of Indonesia’s Aceh coast. Software developers are beginning to integrate RSS feeds into World Wind so its maps can display location-specific news or data in near-real time - from NASA or from users (a kind of geoéblogging). Eventually, when news breaks halfway around the world (or down the street), you will go to your laptop for the view from above.
- Douglas McGray
credit Nasa.gov
Earth and the California coast
credit Nasa.gov
San Francisco
credit Nasa.gov
Grand Canyon
credit Nasa.gov
Glacier Bay
credit Nasa.gov
Mount Fuji
credit Nasa.gov
Pyongyang, North Korea
credit Nasa.gov
Sumatra
credit Nasa.gov
The Aceh Coast, before (left) and after
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