Using World Wind with GLOBE data
A 3D Earth-viewing application developed by NASA Ames Research Center
Introduction
World Wind lets a user zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, automatically selecting appropriate resolution satellite imagery and elevation data to create aerial views or views of flying across the world in any direction. It was designed to be easy to use, and the only control needed is a two button mouse. Navigation is accomplished with single mouse clicks and the ability to type in any location and automatically zoom to it.
World Wind also allows viewing of other datasets in its 3D environment, including GLOBE data, weather event animations developed by Goddard Space Flight Center, MODIS data updated daily, and various map reference layers such as country borders, city names, etc. Many of the datasets that can be displayed by World Wind are too large to download the entire dataset to the user's machine, so only the parts being viewed are downloaded and stored in compressed format.
The World Wind application can be downloaded from NASA's World Wind web site: worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/download.html, and can be used under the terms of the NASA Open Source Agreement. It requires a fairly high-end PC to run, including Windows 2000 or XP; Pentium 3, 1 GHz or higher; 256 MB of RAM; 3D graphics card; DSL / Cable internet connection or faster; 2 GB disk space.
Viewing GLOBE data in World Wind
- Start up World Wind with the world called "Earth". (This is the default. Other available worlds include the Moon and Mars.)
- In the top menu bar, click the "WMS Browser" icon. This takes a while to load and brings up a window with two servers listed, NASA SVS Image Server and The GLOBE Program Visualization Server.
- Click the "+" sign next to The GLOBE Visualization Server to expand the hierarchy, then click the "+" signs next to the data category of interest (e.g. Air Temperature) until the desired dataset is seen.
- Once a dataset is selected, you can either:
- View the dataset for a particular date by clicking the "Still Image" button; or
- Animate the dataset over some length of time by choosing the "Animation" tab in the lower half of the box; select a date range and click on the play button at the bottom of the box.
- The data points are now being displayed on the world image. As you click on the Earth it will turn or spin in the direction of the click and will display the new data points as they are available.
Links to further information
- A helpful Key Chart is available on World Wind's Web site at http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov.
- The World Wind open source community Web site is at http://worldwindcentral.com. (A lot of useful info and datasets here.)