Open Source Mapping with NASA World Wind
After I made the post about the cool new features coming to the renamed Keyhole, a friend sent me a photo of Orlando from an open source program called NASA World Wind.
I posted about World Wind back in November and although I though it was good for a few things, it just didn't work as good as Keyhole. I downloaded the patches and updates to see what has changed and for starters, I can now connect to the server.
It's interface is not as fast and the image downloading is much slower but the coverage from high above is just as good as Google Earth. The real differences is when you start to zoom in.
The first thing you'll notice in World Wind compared to Google Earth is the different satellite views you are given. Many of them only have details from high altitudes but for a visual from space, they work pretty good. Here is New York City from the various satellites.
World Wind also provides 3D visuals of land and tries to show mountains and valleys. From a distance, areas like Silicon Valley look really cool and has many more bright colors then Google. (left: World Wind, right: Google Earth)
Now just because World Wind provides 3D land renders, it's not exactly perfect either. It seems there is a much more of an exaggeration in World Wind. (left: World Wind, right: Google Earth)
...and because of this exaggeration, even when looking straight down on a city the image distortion is noticeable. (left: World Wind, right: Google Earth)
...then we look at an area from an angle and really see things out of place. I would bet that the runways at LAX are flat. (left: World Wind, right: Google Earth)
When it comes to coverage area, Google wins for the high detail around the globe but from far away, I would guess that they are both using the same images. Here is Prince Edward Island, Canada. (left: World Wind, right: Google Earth)
...and for the few cities in the United States that World Wind does offer high resolution images, those again look very similar to that of Google Earth. Not all places are identical. For example, there is no 49ers game happening in World Wind. (left: World Wind, right: Google Earth)
There are some obvious land elevation problems and the close up details are not that great in most areas but World Wind is still not all that bad. After all, it's free.
Comments
Mxx - June 8, 2005 11:31 pm
you can solve those elevation wierdness in WW if you go to "View" menu and there "Vertical Exaggeration". i think by default it's at x3.0 which is a bit extreme. set it to x0 or x1.0 for better results.
Stephen DesRoches - June 9, 2005 10:30 am
Thanks, but it still seems the only way I can get an airport runway flat, is to completely turn off the elevation.
However outside of city areas, the lower elevation looks great.
Robert - November 27, 2005 7:58 pm
In all honesty, I don't think most airport
runways are flat. Even in flight sim, they
a ren't always flat. Could it be this way in the real world, let's find out ...