While Google Earth/Maps users think it is the best thing since burnt toast, WorldWind Java is making headway into a lot more projects.  WorldWind Java related presentations this year include:

• Virtual Ocean
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
• Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory
• Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information
• Joint Center for Intelligent Spatial Computing

Patrick Hogan’s presentations:

• World Wind Java Enabling Technology, Thu 18th Dec 08:00.
• NASA World Wind: A New Mission, Thu 18th Dec 14:55.

Also the European Space Agency will also show a new version of EOLI (Earthnet OnLine Interactive), a client for the Earth Observation, Multi-mission, Catalogue and Ordering Services, using the World Wind SDK.

From Patrick Murris

This conference wins the award for longest name I think.  This conference is financed by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Program.

The event will gather top scientists with different expertise from NATO Countries as well as from eligible NATO Partner or Mediterranean  Dialogue countries.

The workshop will represent an important event where scientist from different disciplines discuss potential ways forward in the domain of reference.

The results of the workshop will be published as NATO Science for Peace Security Series, published by Springer Science and Business Media.

What makes this a conference of note is that Patrick Hogan will be giving a keynote presentation.  Though not much more about the conference has been posted online yet.

I was doing some random searching on Google and came up with this link today, which is related to this PDF link. This is some interesting reading, it is a paper that was written up explaining World Wind; what it is, the development of World Wind, adding data via plug-ins and add-ons and the support of World Wind.

This paper also describes the significant contributions of the international opensource community in making World Wind what it is today. Contributions have involved the following: 1) lead development of add-ons, several of which have been integrated as part of the core system available for direct download via sourceforge, 2) lead provider of high-resolution data sets, 3) lead help desk support through internet relay chat for end-users and developers, and 4) significant technical contributions to the core system including bug identification, tracking and resolution as well as ideas for new features and source code modifications.

This paper is a good read, mainly because it gives the reader a general overview of all of World Wind’s features and functions. This PDF also links to this file about the WWTile setup that is used.

In the area of “I didn’t know they used World Wind for that:

Complimentary research is exploring the use of unmanned air-vehicles (UAVs) such as the NASA Altair (See Figure 11) to support forest fire monitoring operations. UAVs can provide continuous monitoring of an active fire, with higher resolution and more frequent update than MODIS. World Wind has begun to support collaborative decision environments for UAV operations [12]. The goal of this work is to provide the U.S. Forest Service with near real-time high resolution imagery to compliment satellite imagery which only gets updated every one to two days. Use of World Wind is being explored for the planning and monitoring of UAV flight paths and operations (See Figure 12). UAV position during flight can be monitored relative to flight sector boundaries and no-fly zones, and UAV sensor data can be geocoded and made available to users through World Wind.

I know there are groups using World Wind for some interesting uses, and that some can’t say what they are using it for and how. But this is probably one of the most important uses of World Wind I have seen to date.

The rest of the paper deals with the Open Source Community and how they have helped with the development, support and data hosting that World Wind uses. Granted some of the information is a year old now, but it is still relevant.

This paper is worth a read if you want to know more of the World Wind background process.

There, hopefully I just got that song stuck in your head as well Well, as of this posting I am on a plane heading for Chicago and then a connecting flight to San Diego, California. Once there I will sleep and wake up at 4am because my body will tell me it is really 7am Then tomorrow mid morning I will give the first of my two Friday presentations, get the weekend to bumm around San Diego and then a Monday morning presentation to a high school then fly back home. I'll update as the weekend goes, I should have a fairly good report tomorrow afternoon how the presentations went.

Well, three days from right now I will be on a plane heading to San Diego, California to do two days of presentations to school kids on how World Wind can be used for education.

I am sure I will have a ton of reports of how everything goes.  I won’t bore you with the boring weekend where we will be going to the beaches and the boardwalks and a museum or two.. maybe the zoo as well.

I have the flight, room and rental car all booked now… and now I am nervous (still 2 months away) with this all out of the way.. or perhaps it is just because I realized that in 3 weeks I will be speaking to over 1000 kids about World Wind.. :~}

Next two months will be interesting.  If anyone else is going to the Virtual Globes Symposium, let me know.