Satellite Photos

I’ve been playing with satellite photos for the last couple of days. First of all there’s the new satellite photos to be found on Google Maps which are lovely IF you happen to live in the US (or at least want to see satellite photos of the US).
But then I found out about NASA’s World Wind which is quite simply one of the most brilliant and completely free programs to be found anywhere on the internet. It’s a colossal 200MB or so download (bit torrents available) which gives you an application that needs both Direct X and .Net – so Microsoft only. You start with a representation of the globe seen from orbit in space. You can spin it any way you like to find the part of the planet you’re interested in. And then you zoom. And zoom. And zoom. On the fly it begins loading in more detailed satellite imagery, where available, and more detailed pictures emerge. You can see mountain ranges and rivers. Then you see cities and then towns. If you choose the US, you can zoom in so far that in major cities you can actually pick out individual cars. It’s incredible.
And it’s fast, loading up the maps on the fly as you go. So good internet connectivity’s required.
And oh, it’s 3D.
Go to a mountain range, like the Himalayas, and you can then change your angle of view and the mountains are rendered in 3D before your eyes. You can zoom around and fly about like a deranged flight simulator pilot.
I simply can’t think of a better tool for children’s geography lessons. But never mind kids – this isn’t just for them! You can also pick out recent incidents and appropriate satellite photography’s overlaid. You can also compare historic photos to show major fluctuations in parts of the planet – perhaps around a volcano, or icebergs off Antartica.
This is simply phenominal software. A goodish PC with a decent graphics card are desirable, but I managed it with a superfast PC with loads of RAM and a fairly basic graphics card.
I love maps. Really – I do. This is stunning software that I could use for days and days. I cannot recommend it highly enough.