Background

Over the past half decade, NASA has amazed us with other-worldly pictures beamed back to Earth from its intrepid space explorers. From the Viking, Mariner and Voyager missions to the Moon landings and more recent Magellan, Galileo, and Mars Exploration Rovers missions, NASA has dramatically expanded humankind's knowledge and understanding of our interstellar neighbors.

Advanced data integration and visualization technologies will be a critical enabling factor in future space missions, and RIACS is at the forefront of NASA’s efforts to develop next-generation mission operations and health monitoring applications.

In the area of mission operations, current research is focused on developing technologies that layer or "mash" together information from a wide range of geographic and informational data sources into a single, interactive 3D interface.

Solution

World Wind is an open-source 3D world browser which allows a wide variety of global data sets to be viewed in context on a scientifically accurate representation of Earth. Through its intuitive interface, users can navigate in 3d across the planet, zooming from space to any geographic location in the world.

Using satellite imagery taken from a wide variety of NASA missions, World Wind, developed by RIACS in collaboration with NASA, provides a simple, intuitive interface to view stunning planetary imagery. Beginning with a view of Earth from space, users see the spectacular true-color imagery captured by NASA's earth-observing satellites at a resolution of 1 km per pixel.

At the core of World Wind is a 3d visualization engine which powers the software's ability to serve up its stunning visualization of Earth. Using elevation data provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), World Wind models Earth terrain so that users are able to navigate anywhere on the planet, and experience a rich, scientifically accurate representation of Earth. Intuitive mouse controls make navigation as easy as click and drag.

Going well beyond simply providing a detailed geographic view of Earth, World Wind's layering technology allows nearly unlimited sets of data to be viewed separately or concurrently. Place and location names, country and US state boundaries, latitude and longitude, temperature data, rainfall, barometric pressure, and other datasets can all be easily turned on and off through World Wind's layer manager.

Results

By blending together information from historical missions with real-time data, mission personnel will have fingertip access to the collective body of data for a given mission. This will dramatically improve decision-making capabilities as well as operational efficiency.

World Wind, and its cousin Lunar World Wind, already allow viewers to experience the Earth and Moon in great detail. Buy what about Venus, Saturn and Mars? In supporting NASA's needs for rapid visualization of planetary data for mission operations, the World Wind team is taking steps expand planetary visualization into the solar system, allowing users to navigate three dimensionally around the planets.

Ongoing NASA missions continue to deliver high fidelity interplanetary data back to Earth, and World Wind will be making this data easily accessible to NASA researchers, scientists, mission controllers and the public.

Additionally, World Wind development is charting a course to be able to allow users from around the world to contribute their digital imagery into World Wind, providing a new way to experience planet Earth: from the perspective of any of its inhabitants.