[NMLUG] NASA World Wind 1.3 released - only on W2K/XP platform!

[sbrowne at ix.netcom.com (Steve Browne)]

NASA today announced the release of World Wind 1.3, the global aerial
photograph program.

"World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on
Earth. 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."

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

 In spite of being "open source", the initial release is only for
Windows. In a forum, the key developer wrote (last September):

"I'm the lead and (so far) only programmer behind the NASA World Wind
project. I've mentioned elsewhere in the forum some of the reasons for
using Microsoft based-technologies, but the basic reason is that given
our extremely limited budget and resources for this educational
software tool, using C# and Managed DirectX was the only way to get a
deliverable out to the public in short order. We want a Linux and
especially an OSX port for World Wind, and this will happen sooner
rather than later. However, we are still trying to finalize certain
features and functionality that are best done using our current
development suite, but we want World Wind to be ported to other
operating systems and we are actively seeking partnerships to
accomplish this goal.

Since this is open-source, we encourage any OSX programmers to start a
port and we will try our best to provide whatever resources we can
towards the effort. Right now our development staff consists of one
programmer and one graphics designer, but we are an ambitious duo so
we will do our very best to please everyone. (smile.gif)

Chris Maxwell
Lead Developer (World Wind)
NASA Learning Technolgies"

Do we have any Linux programmers here who might like to devote time to
a Linux port? If you are interested, contact

Administrative Contact & Comments:
Patrick Hogan 	 
E-mail 	Patrick.Hogan@nasa.gov
Phone 	1(650) 604-5656

I don't know if NASA can hire anyone on an outsource basis, even pro
bono, but it would be interesting to find out.
Stephen B. Browne
sbrowne@ix.netcom.com
"Ubi bene, ibi patria."