I was listening to John Gage, Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems via IT Conversations, and he describes software [clip] by Keyhole, Inc..
Unfortunately, the software is Windows only, but it is extremely cool and a little hard to describe. The Keyhole description is, "Keyhole LT is a software application that you download and install. It’s only 4MB, but with an annual Keyhole subscription, you can fly through 7+ Terabytes of Earth imagery and data – spinning, rotating, tilting, and zooming. Think magic carpet ride."
You specify any location on Earth (or Mars) and the software will take you there via satellite imagery. You have all the typical navigation features (zoom in/out, etc), and you can tilt the landscape so, for example, you can see the height of Mount Everest in comparison to the surrounding range. Some of the data has sub-meter resolution. I was able to see a man standing in the outfield of Busch Stadium in St. Loius. Very Cool. The data is stored on the Keyhole servers and streamed to your PC, so bandwidth is necessary.
Posted by rob at August 22, 2004 09:03 PM