Bull's Rambles

Ok, this isn’t a serious business recommendation. But, I sure wish the cool data Google has been generating for Google Earth could be combined with World Wind. Google’s quality aerial photography, and 3D buildings are really nice to look at. It’s just too bad the Google Earth user interface isn’t better. Google has been spending an enormous amount of money acquiring the technology, buying the airplane time, and the computing resources to process and host their imagery. And, the results are really spectacular. This week, Google released a ton of new imagery, and new cities with 3D buildings.

Thanks Google! Now, would you pretty please create an API for your data for World Wind?

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=_F8dIbb2zbc]

Deja-vu?

This Plug-in is the result of a collaborative effort between The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University, and The Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology (IAGT) a Cayuga Community College, with funding provided by USAID to support the SERVIR project.

From the description -

This Plug-in integrates The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) data for Africa in WorldWind.

In WorldWind, you can view the IRI datasets, clicking on points brings up graphs of variables such as rainfall.

I have only played around with this Plug-in for a short time, but I’m already very impressed, do beware though it is not a simple plug-in some features are tricky to find.

The Data comes from a variety of places, MODIS, MEWS and others, the Plug-in can display a simple static image (with legend) for the latest available data, select a specific date, or you can select a time range for an animation.

Another important feature is the ‘Get info..’ button, this places pushpins on the map, which when clicked display detailed data n World Winds internal browser (looks great on a widescreen monitor), there is probably a lot I have missed and no doubt more data sources will be added, but from what I have seen this will be a very useful tool for scientists and government agencies.

For more information visit the WorldWind Central wiki page.

From the 9.01 release notes -

Added option to World Wind export to allow generating the filenames required by the Java edition of World Wind.

There are lots of other improvements too, check out the Global Mapper Forum for more details, I’m still hoping they will add World Wind elevation export sometime, it is something many people would love.