Ok, been getting a lot of the same questions coming up in regards to the WWJava Alpha Testing and release. I'll answer what I can here. As the time for public beta release comes (~ the end of April), I will be interviewing the NASA WW team (so if you have questions, post a comment with the question and I'll ask).
So to start..
Q: Why is the Alpha Test closed?
A: The answer is that the NASA WW team wants a directed focus group to look at WWJava to find and help hammer out the bugs. It is far easier to manage this with a smaller group, than with a public release. And since the Alpha testers will be primarily Java developers, they will know what to look for and how to report the bug and most likely, know what needs to be done to fix it.
Q: Will alpha testers get access to the SVN?
A: Yes, they will have read only access. You can fix bugs and submit them, but I do not know the process for that yet.
Q: Will the source code be released?
A: YES, Yes and .. YES! NASA World Wind is still an open source project and the WWJava code will be put on the public SVN for all to download, hack, compile, crash, make changes to.
Q: Can anyone commit changes to the code?
A: No. Well, not officially you can commit. You can commit to the public SVN, but your changes would have to be reviewed, tested and evaluated before they would be applied to the main SVN.
Q: Will WWJava be like the .Net version?
A: Not at first. the .Net version of World Wind has been in development since 2004. The Java code has been in development since October 2006.
Q: What operating systems will WWJava run on?
A: Any OS that can run Java, and has the ability to run as an applet
Q: When the public beta's come out, it will be bug free then?
A: Most likely no, but a very good chunk of them should be eliminated and most likely only minor bugs will be found
Q: Did I just make all this up?
A: I wish. I have answered most these questions 4-5 times already.:)
Again, if you have any questions that you want me to ask the NASA WW team, post a comment to this thread with the question.
You are going to interview Tom G.? Good luck
I have two questions, 1) Wil WWJ support WW .xml and if not, why? 2) Will Tom finish the scripting support he started in WW .NET?
FAQ for the Upcoming NASA World Wind Java Release...
The Earth is Square offers informative tidbits about the upcoming NASA World Wind Java release. Expect a public beta in April. From the blog: "Q: Will WWJava be like the .Net version?
A: Not at first. the .Net version of World Wind has been in develop...
sounds great! How do we become part of the 'directed focus group'? Do we need to be corporate, or individual CVs? I am certainly interested
apologies for comment above, I had already read the invitation of the forums (which I missed the deadline), and then saw this blogged - not realizing it was the same initial screening. Just too keen to evaluate it, time for a cold shower.
Will 3D in Stereo be supported?
I'd love to look at this through a set of CrystalEyes on a Sun Ultra 80 (4x450Mhz Ultrasparc II, 4GB Ram, 2x 21" Monitors)
Cheers,
Peter.
There is a 3D plug-in, http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/Add-on:Anaglyph_3D_%28plugin%29
I see that the wiki version is not compatable, but that the 1.4 install has a working version. Though I don't think it would work with CrystalEyes..
I must admit, I'm a little skeptical about java performance. I've seen 3D-java apps. They are "functional", but I've never seen one that really zings.
I trust that this has already been discussed at length. Can anyone provide insight into the core technologies, and how its going to work?
Not yet. Other than the developers at NASA and Sun.. the community hasn't had a chance to play around with the latest code.
I have tried the first version of the applet form of WWJava and I was getting 70-80 FPS but it only had the blue marble layer for imagery.
I'll post more about WWJava once I get a copy and start looking at it more.
I've built large graphics apps using java3d and hardware acceleration. Performance won't be a problem. The software is all free (both kinds of free) - so go build some large models yourself and try it. This is great news.
Anyone who has profiled a well tuned java app knows that perceived java performance is always gated by a few routines in the OS, or in this case, OpenGL. NASA has made a really good decision using the java/jogl/opengl combination.
They will have performance on par with the .NET implementation, and it will be cross platform. And the java API's are at least 5th generation, so there is alot of great classes in the java stuff other than opengl/ui, etc.