DescentBB

http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind/features.html

it's from nasa.

this program looks sweet, i'm downloading it now.
it's like celestia, but with real time satelite texturing/3dheightmapping/ETCETC that updates in realtime. and it's made by nasa.

first off it uses the bluemarble texturing information set, which is pretty huge. as you get closer to the ground it starts to use LANDSAT satelite texturing, which it downloads (and saves for later) in realtime. it also uses 3d texturing information so you can fully see mountains and stuff, this isn't bumpmapps, it's REAL 3D MODELS.

this thing, is like Celestia gone nuts (but only earth, not the rest of the universe unfortunately. that'l probabaly come later eh, knowcking celestia outof the "my program is the best" competition).

Looks awesome. But I have only just started to play with Celestia!!

really? i thought you'd be all over celestia.

I have played around with this software before. Well, I think it was this. Is this the software that lets you spin the Earth around and zoom in on cities? I think the city bitmaps were satellite images that were downloaded off of your Internet connection.

I remember seeing my house on there too. My old white Corolla was in the driveway. Kinda spooky. O_o

Edit: Just re-read your first post. Seems like this may be what I am describing, just minus the 3D cities.

you're probably thinking of keyhole. it's not keyhole.

for starters worldwind is free. i could kiss those geeks at nasa

Dloading now ... wow its big ...


What do you think so far?

Not real impressed ... I can navigate to anywhere in the world and see some pretty kewl imagery but there is no 3D relief to the map as the site claims. Even if I use the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 keys as the help chart says.

the auto-download texture site is being slashdotted (notice the "downloading... borked, try again in 2 minutes" kinda message as you zoom up close?).

the 3D relief along with the high res LANDSAT imagery is hosted on the landsat servers, and they are hosed atm.

the USGS (united states geo survey) servers are still working fine though, so click the USGS buttons and zoom up close to the USA.

ETA on fixing the landsat servers to handle the unbelievable new data load - 1 week.

nasa slashdotted, who woulda thunk eh

trivia - all up this program can pull from archives totalling around 20TerraBytes of data, impressive. and as the data is constantly updated with fresher satelite images - the program is also updated.

Still no go ...

dude, i said 1 week, not 5 minutes