Another cool mapping tool - NASA World Wind

I just stumbled across this the other day: NASA World Wind. Basically it is a computerized 3D model of Earth, with user-selectable imagry. You can choose from true- and false-color satellite images, aerial photos and USGS topo maps. The images are downloaded on the fly as you zoom in, so the program is a bit of a bandwidth hog. The terrain is 3D as well, and it gets finer as you zoom in more. It has a searchable index of placenames, and you can hyperlink locations on the globe. Here is my house. I added a link in GSAK so now I can zoom in to any geocache on the planet and view the terrain! NASA has a few topo screenshots and satellite screenshots of what it can do. You can also go to current world conditions like fires, floods & hurricanes, and also look at historical data, such as before and after data of the Mount St. Helens eruption. There is also a growing list of user-contributed data, such as the Lewis and Clark Trail and the Appalachian Trail.

The scrolling and zooming is smooth as silk as long as you aren't using many other programs on your computer. So far I've visited New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the Himalayas, Paris, Washington State and Maine. It's a huge download (188 MB), but it's not a problem if you have DSL or cable. It's also my favorite price: free! I'd be curious to hear from anyone else that has tried it and hear what they think of it. I'm having a blast scrolling around the planet and checking out places! :D

How close can you zoom in?

You can get in as close as you can with USAPhotomaps - you can see the blocks for houses on the 1:24k topo maps, and individual cars if you are using the aerial urban maps (and if they cover that region). Outside of the US, you mostly have satellite imagery which isn't that hot.... I could easily see the Gisa pyramids in Egypt, but could just barely make out the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The Palace of Versailles looks pretty good, though. The nice thing is the 3D topography is worldwide, so you can zoom through the Alps or Andes like you were flying by in a plane.

How do you link the program to GSAK so that is opens on the right lat/lon?

Faolan

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Originally Posted by Faolan

How do you link the program to GSAK so that is opens on the right lat/lon?

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In GSAK, do Tools, Options, HTML, and add the following line at the bottom:

NASA World Wind=worldwind://goto/world=Earth&lat=%lat&lon=%lon&alt=6928&dir=0&tilt= 45

That's it! :D

Hey Glen, how do you come up with all that stuff anyway?

Hi, Haffy! Not sure which "stuff" you're referring to. If it's the URL I just posted, there's an option in the program to "Copy Location to Clipboard" or something like that. Then I just took out the numbers and put in GSAK's lat/lon variables following the examples already in there. Not hard at all really. :)

I came across World Wind in a forum someplace where people were discussing Google's new 3D online mapping tool versus Microsoft's. Someone just threw World Wind out there. It's a cool tool, but really not practical for general geocaching, unless you were up in the mountains. For me, GSAK+USAPhotoMaps does the trick. I modified a macro so you can send your list of caches from GSAK right to USAPM - very handy! :eek:

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Originally Posted by Cache'n Jacksons

In GSAK, do Tools, Options, HTML, and add the following line at the bottom:

NASA World Wind=worldwind://goto/world=Earth&lat=%lat&lon=%lon&alt=6928&dir=0&tilt= 45

That's it! :D

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I get an error when I try to use this link. What am I doing wrong?

That link is for GSAK, and will only work if you have NASA World Wind installed. There are no coordinates in it, so the link won't take you anywhere in World Wind. GSAK fills in the %lat and %lon variables when you pick a cache.