NASA Internet software zooms to nearly anywhere on Moon in 3-D (Forwarded)
John Bluck
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. Oct. 26, 2005
Phone: 650/604-5026 or 604-9000
RELEASE: 05-56AR
NASA INTERNET SOFTWARE ZOOMS TO NEARLY ANYWHERE ON MOON IN 3-D
Internet users can now take virtual 3-D trips to nearly anyplace on
the moon, thanks to a NASA program first designed to show aerial
views of the Earth.
The newly expanded NASA 'World Wind' computer program can 'transport'
Web users to almost anyplace on the moon, when they zoom in from a
global view to closer pictures of our natural satellite taken by the
Clementine spacecraft in the 1990s. Computer programmers at NASA
Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley originally designed
the World Wind program to deliver satellite images and data of Earth
to the Internet. Users can see detailed 3-D pictures of the Earth's
land surface, including its elevation and climate.
"We have just digested the best of the Clementine images, so we can
now deliver the moon at 66 feet (20 meters) of resolution," said
Patrick Hogan, manager of the World Wind Project Office at NASA
Ames. "This is a first. No one has ever explored our moon in the 3-D
interactive environment that World Wind creates," noted Hogan.
Launched in early 1994, Clementine took 1.8 million pictures of the
lunar surface during a two-month orbit of the moon. The Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization and NASA jointly sponsored the Deep
Space Program Science Experiment that included the Clementine
spacecraft. Its principal objective was to 'space-qualify'
lightweight imaging sensors and component technologies for the next
generation of Department of Defense spacecraft.
"Imagine riding a magic carpet through the world and being able to
zoom down to any point, or appear magically at any location. That's
what World Wind is like," said Mark Leon, chief of the Education
Division at NASA Ames. "Not only has Hogan's team produced new
technology with World Wind, but they have done so as open source
computer code, so it is free for all who would download it," Leon
added.
"NASA World Wind allows users to explore their (computer) environment
at will," Hogan said. "This leads to much greater engagement with,
and by, the users and personalizes it for their own discovery." In
contrast, movies are not as engaging, or immersive, in that the user
does not control them, Hogan observed.
The personal computer (PC)-compatible World Wind program is
available free of charge via Internet 'download.' Computer users from
more than 100 nations have acquired the free World Wind program,
though most users are from the United States. To download World Wind,
visit:
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
NASA World Wind is delivering terabytes of global NASA satellite data
that are a result of years of daily observations of precipitation,
temperature, barometric pressure and much more. Recently, hurricane
Katrina data have been added to World Wind's collection of images.
There are an estimated 10,000 daily users of World Wind.
In addition to improving World Wind by adding images of the moon,
NASA programmers recently have increased the resolution of images of
Earth from 3,281-foot (one-kilometer) resolution to 1,640-foot
(500-meter) resolution in an upgrade called 'Blue Marble, Next
Generation Earth.' Also, some World Wind data sets include images of
the entire Earth at 49-foot (15-meter) resolution. The United States
data in World Wind is at 3.3-foot (one-meter) resolution with some
urban areas at one-foot (0.33-meter) resolution.
World Wind has been enabling hundreds of thousands of Internet users
to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth to see across
the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps or along the African
Sahara. World Wind accesses public domain United States Geological
Survey aerial photography and topographic maps as well as Shuttle
Radar Topography Mission and Landsat satellite data.
.
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