Chris Maxwell has been quite busy this weekend. Not only has he added a realistic acting sun he has been making a lot of tweaks to the KML support in world Wind.
Here are some samples of the support now (Still some ways to go though but it is a low of leaps and bounds jumps):
This is a sample of shapes and lines from a KML file.
A 3D building in GE:
Same building/KML in World Wind:
Brand new commit today to the World Wind code. We now have a Sun and realistic lighting of the globe. The Sun's position is set by your computer's clock and according to the developer, is accurate to one degree.
Check it out:
You can check out the sun by downloading the latest SVN code, or downloading a test buld here.
Hypoxia is a phenomenon that occurs in aquatic environments as dissolved oxygen becomes reduced in concentration to a point detrimental to aquatic organisms living in the system.
This is a major concern if the Gulf Coast is going to continue being as productive as it is now. NOAA is leading a research study into the levels of Oxygen that are in the Gulf Coast. This research is called the Gulf Coast Hypoxia Watch and is a yearly study of the levels of oxygen.
This add-on coveres the study years of 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002. The data includes the color contour maps if the Oxygen levels and markers for all the collection stations.
Click here to download this add-on.Â
Here are some screen shots of the add-on in use:
Scene Express now exports to World Wind.
Scene Express now includes a new exporter for exporting to NASA's WorldWind software. Export landcover textures including roads, orthophotos, water and vectors from any WCS/VNS scene straight to WorldWind for viewing within an interactive 3D planet environment. Adding WorldWind support to the powerful landscape creation tools already found in Scene Express makes creating Virtual Globe scenes from existing projects as easy as clicking Export.
As you recall, the other day I had blogged about the download numbers for World Wind on Sourceforge. Mostly about how there was a 12 place jump from what there was before. No comparisons to anything, just some raw data. Now tonight I find an interesting post about the "popularity" of World Wind.
First thing I think of is "WTF?!?!" Second thing I think of is "What gave him that line of thought?"
With Google Earth having been downloaded 100 million times just recently, does this mean that Google Earth enjoys 91% market share vs. NWW's 9%, roughly speaking? Or would it depend rather more on who comes out with the most versions over time, which would require more repeat downloads?
Comparing the number of times something is downloaded is NOT a good comparison of how two products are. I have GE and World Wind installed. I use world Wind 99% of the time.. mainly because GE is mighty slow on a modem connection (6 to 7 times slower than WW). A lot of people probably have both applications as well as other applications installed on their computers.
I would consider the use of the application in other products as a better indicator of an applications popularity. There are 4 to 5 applications that are based on the WW code.. probably more that are government exclusive use. You CAN'T do that in GE.
Ok, stepping off my soda can pedestal now. 
I can only hope I can cash them in for the grand prize behind curtain #2 
If you read my blog posts, you know I have contacts and dealings with NASA the USGS, NOAA and ESA. And working on my own time to bring their data to the masses / World Wind.
Now I just told the NASA World Wind project manager last night I would look into getting some Brazilian data into World Wind as well. From an email forwarded to me:
We are a Brazilian aerophotogrametric company focus in produce a high quality digital Brazilian maps. Multispectral is a innovating company. We have one aircraft with a mapping camera and all infrastructures to produce high quality digital maps. (Imagery, DEM, vector and etc). Also we keep and update a 2.694 cities for which we have at least street and other basic layers.
And this is what I will start working with first:
Country data: All municipalities boundaries, names, roads and rivers
Municipalitie data: All ortho imagery from São Paulo (biggest Brazilian city)
Probably more data once they see it in World Wind.
