Google earth on steroids!!!!!

[Ob1]

NASA's version of google earth, but 10 times better. Instead of using the low-res satellite images that google earth buys on the free market, all images come from NASA satellites, and inlcudes complete maps of the Earth, the moon and Mars, plus you can even overlay current weather conditions and cloud positions - from maximum pc magazine.

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

[TwoRails]

Looks like it's pretty sweet, Ob1!

[trowand]

Yeah, I just read about this. Probably also in MaximumPC magazine. I can't wait to check it out. I've been waiting for Google to get better, sharper, higher-res pics forever. I'm glad this is out. I can't look at it right now b/c I'm at work.

[rspassey]

Thanks for the link. I'm downloading now.

[juppy]

Looks like it would be cool if I was able to use it. Yet another Earth viewer that you have to have broadband for. I wish the phone/internet companies around here would get off their humps and hurry up and get broadband out here to us. Seems like all they're worried about are the people that live within city limits though.

[rspassey]

Well, I admit it is very cool, though I am a little disappointed in the rendering of earth. From a distance, everything looks incredible, but zooming in, I couldn't get a decent image of my city to even be able to distinguish it from a grey blur. Unless I'm doing something wrong, google earth seems to do a little better job with that.

[Ob1]

rspassey~ i had the same issue with having it zoom in and basically was so blurry and crappy looking i couldn't distinguish a tree from a building. im going to play around with it and see if i can figure out whats going on with it cause i can't imagine maximum pc would put this in there magazine if its this bad. i tried zooming out by changing the viewing altitude but that didn't seem to do anything. how is it that we can take pictures of the galaxy millions of miles away and they are crystal clear but we can't take a hi-res pictures of earth with the salellites orbiting only a few hundred miles from earth and be able to zoom in on anything and look good. hmmm interesting, maybe NASA can explain this to us!!!!!!!

[Strider]

I've downloaded it too, because of Maximum PC's article and I'm also dissappointed with it. Google Earth in my opinion does a better job with up close pictures and is better in giving locations and names. Oh Well, can't complain to much because it's FREE.

[(51)]

Thanks for the link. I like the real time global weather feature and the topo map feature. It is lacking in clear up-close photos. Perhaps that will come soon.

[glc]

I have to decide whether to install .NET before I'll try it. So far, I've been able to avoid that.

[rspassey]

Yeah, I decided that I'd install .NET (thinking this software was going to be amazing). I'm slightly disappointed, but I played around with looking at the other planets and moon for quite some time.

[juppy]

Originally Posted by glc I have to decide whether to install .NET before I'll try it. So far, I've been able to avoid that.

Just to satisfy my curiosity G, is there something bad about the .NET stuff or do you just not want it taking up space on your hard drive? Because I've never heard anything bad about it (and it's installed on my machine).

[rspassey]

The .NET stuff (or perhaps the program in general) messed up my login somehow. I never used to have to click on my user profile, but after I installed it, things changed (good thing it didn't request a password - I've probably forgotten my administrator password by now anyways).

I uninstalled it all, and had to run registry booster to get things back to normal. Sheesh.

[ghost2003]

Meh, even their cities with the "high-res" look very bad.
Google earth has much better pictures. Although I am dissapointed that they changed the picture of downtown Ottawa with a new one that has big clouds blocking everything.

[pam123]

I've been meaning to give this a try so thanks for the reminder.

[TwoRails]

Originally Posted by rspassey The .NET stuff (or perhaps the program in general) messed up my login somehow. I never used to have to click on my user profile, but after I installed it, things changed (good thing it didn't request a password - I've probably forgotten my administrator password by now anyways). I uninstalled it all, and had to run registry booster to get things back to normal. Sheesh.

Ya, glc explained it to me in a different thread: .NET requires it's own logon (!?!). I'm not a fan of it, but more and more program / utilities are being written in it.

[rspassey]

Originally Posted by TwoRails Ya, glc explained it to me in a different thread: .NET requires it's own logon (!?!). I'm not a fan of it, but more and more program / utilities are being written in it.

Meh... I got rid of it for now - if I ever need it again, I can download it again.

[blue60007]

This had better res imagery right over my house (Google Earth has some reallly crappy res right there), but it still uses some of the same imagery as GE. I can tell because in both GE and this, right over my old house is a plume of smoke. :P I can't even see the house cause someone was burning something... Point being, it's the same imagery...

[ComputerNut]

Won't even work on my system, I just get an unhandled exception.

[Kareeser]

The blurry images could be a privacy thing... If they wanted detail, I'm pretty sure they could get it

I think this was the program that the demostrator was using in the video in this thread:
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=166871

[juppy]

Originally Posted by rspassey The .NET stuff (or perhaps the program in general) messed up my login somehow. I never used to have to click on my user profile, but after I installed it, things changed (good thing it didn't request a password - I've probably forgotten my administrator password by now anyways).

Originally Posted by TwoRails Ya, glc explained it to me in a different thread: .NET requires it's own logon (!?!). I'm not a fan of it, but more and more program / utilities are being written in it.

So how come I don't have that problem? Are you guys using a different version? Because I'm still using version 1.1 and I don't have to click on my user name to login to WinXP each time. Everything just loads fine.....splash screen, welcome screen, then the desktop....automatically.

[glc]

To me, it's just extra bloat. Remember, I'm the one that still uses Win2000 and Office 97.

[juppy]

Oh, I see.....so just not putting anything on the system that isn't a "have to" thing then. I have to mention though glc, my brother has you beat in the "still using old software" department. He works at a machine shop and because of all the different machines he runs and different tolerances on various parts they make, he's made up a notebook on all of them using a word processor. When he started the book, he was using Microsoft Works that came with Windows 3.1 on the old 486/33 I used to have (which I gave to him). Now two computers later, he's running an Athlon 64 3000+ and Windows XP, but that old Microsoft Works program is still what he uses for his notes! If it ever loses compatibility with the newer operating systems, I don't know what he'll do.

[glc]

Save all his Works documents as .rtf then use Wordpad.

[juppy]

Yeah, we tried to do that a couple years ago but we ran into spacing problems. He has bitmap pictures of alot of the parts that he's drawn up in a cad program and inserted right in there with the text. It all transfers, but the spacing is way off......like the pictures are off center and some of the text ends up looking like he hit enter before he got to the end of the line. It looked really screwy and was going to take alot of editing so he just said forget it and kept on using the same program. He may not have a choice one of these days, but I guess he'll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

[Kareeser]

Would compatibility mode be an option? Just a thought

[glc]

That doesn't appear to be necessary - yet.

[juppy]

I don't think compatibility mode goes back that far anyway, does it? This program was originally on a Windows 3.1 machine. Isn't Windows 95 as far back as compatibility goes?

It's running for right now anyway. Surprised the heck out of me, to be quite honest, because I can't think of very many other programs I've got that were designed to run on 3.1 that still function correctly on XP.

[glc]

Most apps written for 3.1 will run on 95/98.

If you had to, you could just upgrade Works to the latest suite. It's cheap.

[juppy]

But would the latest suite read his old files right, or would we be in the same boat we were with transferring to Wordpad? And what upgrade are you talking about, like MS Office or something?