A DTM is the digital representation of the elevation of a planet’s surface at ground level. The base model is a virtual globe, a 3D representation of a planet, enriched with its digital terrain model (DTM). This visualization technology provides a multi-dimensional geographic information system (GIS) and an extensible framework for analyses and visualization of scientific data.

World Wind is an API-centric SDK, an Application Programming Interface (API) Software Development Kit (SDK) that delivers virtual world for experiencing geospatial data in its native context. This motto is fully realized in NASA World Wind. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was born in 1958 with a motto: “For the Benefit of All”.

With this contribution, we want to increase awareness of NASA World Wind as a unique opportunity to foster collaboration between scientists, developers and other stakeholders, enriching knowledge of our Earth’s complexity.

The European Space Agency is now partnering with NASA on development of the 'ESA-NASA Web World Wind' this high degree of interest from other agencies will boost future project productivity. We give here an overview of the project, reporting details regarding current development direction, with state of the art examples. NASA World Wind provides the ideal environment for scientific data, their analysis, visual representation and interaction with users, in a single platform, which can be deployed both as a Java desktop application (NASA World Wind) or a JavaScript web application (ESA-NASA Web World Wind). NASA World Wind is an open source application-programming interface for developing geographic information systems based on a virtual globe rendering engine representing a planet.

Globe map of world 3d