World Wind lets PC users zoom from satellite altitude into any place on the globe. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.

Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps, or along the African Sahara.

World Wind allows any user to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging high resolution LandSat imagery and SRTM elevation data to experience Earth in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there.

Particular focus was put into the ease of usability so people of all ages can enjoy World Wind. All one needs to control World Wind is a two button mouse.

Additional guides and features can be accessed though a simplified menu. Navigation is automated with single clicks of a mouse as well as the ability to type in any location and automatically zoom into it.

World Wind benefits most from a video card with 3D acceleration. If you don't know whether your machine comes with one, it is likely to have one built in if the computer was purchased within the past two years.

World Wind requires that you have DirectX and the .NET runtime environment installed. If you don't have them on your computer, World Wind Setup will direct you to web pages where you can download DirectX and .NET runtime environment.

World Wind comes with data you can zoom into. After a certain point, World Wind will begin to download more images automatically. The servers hosting this information are very busy and may be unresponsive until we get the necessary infrastructure.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Plugin: Movie Recorder (added avi xport)
· Plugin: Place Finder Loader (Supports more geocoders)
· Plugin: Satellite Tracker
· Plugin: Virtal Earth, downloads Microsoft local live data (must be loaded from the plugins menu, then activated by clicking the toolbar icon)
· Plugin: Improved WMS browser with GetCapabilities support
· Data: New NRL data
· Data: WFS placenames and boundaries
· Core: New accurate sunshading
· Core: Support for 3D models
· Core: Atmosphere (Improved with atmospheric scattering)
· Core: Added widget support
· Widget: New scalebar
· Widget: Time controller
· Widget: 3D compass widget
· Installer: Removed background
· Installer: Mars, Moon, SDSS icons removed
· Installer: .Net 2.0 check
· Installer: Added command line tags NODOTNET, /NODX, /NOMDX) to skip detection of .NET, DirectX 9.0c, and Managed DirectX, to skip checks respectively.