The Earth Is Square

I may just have to download and give Second Life a try.. NOAA now has their own island in the Second Life universe now. What is interesting is the things you can do there.

Soar through a hurricane on the wing of a research aircraft, rise gently through the atmosphere atop a weather balloon or search for a hidden underwater cave on a side trip from a NOAA submersible.

Why Second Life? This sums up the idea nicely:

"We're experimenting with new ways to conduct science and public education that appeal to a different sensibility and may help a new audience get excited about Earth science," says ESRL director Alexander (Sandy) MacDonald, who supported development of the site. "Recruiting the next generation of Earth scientists is a priority for NOAA. Our site offers visitors a way to experience the planet through reality-based virtual adventures. Some of them may have shied away from science in the past."

I came across this handy little app the other day and it is almost too much fun just to play with downloading and generating data / images.  It is used to decode GRIB2 data that the National Weather Service puts out.

The National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) is a database put together by the National Weather Service (NWS) to provide forecasts of sensible weather elements (e.g., cloud cover, maximum temperature) on a seamless grid.  The NDFD is currently given out to the public as a GRIB2 file.  For more information about how and why the NDFD was created, please see the NDFD Home page

So now you can generate your own weather maps and also export the data out as shapefiles.

Program at startup:

Generated weather maps:

You can also export the data as shapefiles by clicking on the GIS tab:

Generated shapefile in qGis:

Now mainly I downloaded this because it is one of the methods Hurricane data is sent out, and you can command line script this application.  Then I can work out a way to bring this data almost directly into World Wind.  But, it is also just fun to play with

I spent as much of yesterday as I could away form the computer (and feeling it today) but still.. I am surprised this has not floated around GIS Blogs yet.

But yesterday Slashdot had an article on how "Google Earth Images are Made"  with a link to this Google Librarian Central article from last year (took /. a year to find it??).

Not much of an article really, and anyone involved in aerial imagery knows what is done and how.

Anyone feel their wakeup call?

Just thought I would remind people that with each Virtual Earth imagery update. That same imagery can be viewed in World Wind with the Virtual Earth Plug-in. Granted it is just the aerial imagery.. and not the Birdseye or 3D buildings... yet.

Daniel points out a youtube video from an ABC news report about consumer NASA products.. and near the end features World Wind with a brief interview with Patrick Hogan, the NASA WW Project Manager.

Came out very nice I thought.  Even if I had to wait about 30 minutes to download on my home dial-up connection