LiveSide - News blog : WorldWide Telescope

WorldWide Telescope Aphelion Release - Web Version Now Beta

Sunshine — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:18:44 GMT

New releases of both the Windows and web Client are now available with many new features and bug fixes. The Windows Client has photo-realistic rendering of the Earth and Sun, as well as shadows of Jupiter's moons. The new Cosmos rendering incorporates the most advanced view of the universe outside of our Galaxy ever available. Both versions include new features for professional astronomers, including displaying FITS images and Virtual Observatory queries.

And what do we see here? The web version isn’t a Tech Preview anymore now, look at the beta tag!

Both scientists and amateur astronomers can take advantage of the scientific data available in the latest release of WorldWide Telescope. The heart of the latest release is the incorporation of an entire collection of science-quality data. Users will be able to delve into hundreds of terabytes of images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, and Spitzer Space Telescope. You can even do a search on certain objects! Previous WorldWide Telescope images came from surveys and studies from science institutions for public visualization.

Furthermore Aphelion has 3-D exploration (Windows client only), so get your 3-D glasses out. WorldWide Telescope even supports inexpensive paper 3-D glasses like the kind given out for use with movies and TV specials! Wish I had one!

But that’s not all! Did you know that you can embed WorldWide Telescope into your own site? You can with the web control. More info on how to do that can be found at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/authoring/Developer.aspx and at the Data Blog.

WorldWide Telescope
Microsoft Research - WorldWide Telescope’s New Frontier
Previous WWT articles

WorldWide Telescope And Photosynth In Time’s 50 Best Websites List For 2009

Sunshine — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:50:15 GMT

WorldWide Telescope and Photosynth, have been named to Time's 50 Best Websites list for 2009.

[click on the image to go to the page]

Very nice considering these sites are still fairly new, Photosynth just turned one and the Worldwide Telescope web client has only been available since March 2009! WWT itself went public in May 2008. Both technologies came out of Microsoft Research.

Congratulations!

Previous WorldWide Telescope articles
Previous Photosynth articles

WorldWide Telescope: Nearly 2 Million Regular Users And Two Award Nominations!

Sunshine — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:13:40 GMT

Since its public release in May 2008, nearly 2 million people around the world downloaded the free desktop observatory. PC World called World Wide Telescope a “phenomenal resource for enthusiasts, students, and teachers,” and tech blogger Robert Scoble called it “the most fabulous thing I’ve seen Microsoft do in years.” Here at LiveSide we reported on WWT frequently. We told you what WorldWide Telescope has to do with Microsoft Virtual Earth, about the new releases (new release about once every 3 months), the release of the web version of WWT and the partnership with Disney-Pixar.

On March 24, NASA and Microsoft Corp. announced plans to make planetary images and data available via the Internet under a Space Act Agreement. This will result in even more interesting data and images, including high-resolution scientific images and data from Mars and the moon, on top of the 25 terabytes of data and imagery already stored in the “cloud.”

The team will continue to “push the limits of technology to help professional astronomer, teachers and students of all ages explore the sky,” said Jonathan Fay, a principal research software design engineer at Microsoft Research. Together with Curtis Wong, a principal researcher with Microsoft Research, Jonathan Fay drove the creation of Worldwide Telescope. The WorldWide Telescope team also continues to establish relationships with educators and scientists all over the world, and to localize telescope data. The small team has built an application that allows local universities to translate WorldWide Telescope’s interface into different languages, starting with Chinese.

WorldWide Telescope has been nominated for two awards, the Edison Award and an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) award. The Edison Awards “symbolize the persistence and excellence personified by Thomas Alva Edison,” recognizing ingenuity, innovation, and creativity in the global economy. The award is presented on April 1. The AIGA’s annual awards recognize the year’s best work “across all disciplines of communication design and strategy.” The AIGA award will be given out later this spring.

Congrats from us here at LiveSide, well done!

Update: Edison Awards - WWT won Silver - Curtis Wong of Microsoft wins a Silver Edison for his development of the WorldWide Telescope, in this year's the "Transportation" category (photo).

WorldWide Telescope
WorldWide Telescope Web Client (Alpha)

PRdomain.com | Microsoft | WorldWide Telescope Puts Wonders of Space on a PC
Presspass - NASA and Microsoft to Make Universe of Data Available to the Public
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WorldWide Telescope Web Client now available – bringing the universe closer to everyone

damaster — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:09:37 GMT

As of today, WorldWide Telescope is no longer limited to the Windows operating system, as the an alpha version of the WorldWide Telescope Web Client was released – and it’s based on Silverlight 2.0! This means that you can now bring this virtual telescope to any platforms that supports Silverlight 2.0. Here’s a screenshot of the web client running in my browser:

Below is a list of features in the web client:

Access to hundreds of terabytes of sky, earth and planet data
Ability to navigate seamlessly through 3D spherical environments
Finder Scope to quickly identify astronomical objects
Instant thumbnail previews of tens of thousands of popular astronomical objects
Access to billions of objects in web-based astronomical catalogue
Loading tours, images and other WorldWide Telescope data files on local machine
Real-time positions of planets and moons
Move forwards and backwards in time 2000 years
View guided tours (without 3D planets)
Browsing local user collections
Virtual Observatory Cone search/registry look up and SIMBAD search

It is also said that the ability to change viewing location and a basic Solar System View are coming soon to the web client. It’s great to see Microsoft utilizing the capabilities of what Silverlight can do and brings its software cross-platform.

You can view the WorldWide Telescope Web Client (alpha) at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/webclient

WorldWide Telescope - Solstice Borealis Release

Sunshine — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:17:56 GMT

WorldWide Telescope has just been updated to version 2.2.41.1 named Solstice Borealis. WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interesting places in the sky.

This new release includes the following features:

- National Virtual Observatory Cone Search / Registry Lookup
Search through the United States NVO registry to find information about astronomical bodies. Can be found under “Search” in the menu
- Stereo 3D Views - WWT supports Anaglyph 3D view. Stereoscopic view also supports a split screen of normal and anaglyph views or a cross-eyed view. You can find these one under “View”.
- Image Alignment - Super-easy pivot align feature. Just load any image, align one correspond star, right click on star centroid and dragging any other star allows you to scale and rotate the view to exactly match the background. Map Cruncher for the universe? Use CTRL+E.

More detailed information about this update can be found on Chris Pendleton's Blog.

So how to get this new version? Two ways to do so:
1. Start up WorldWide Telescope, and click OK on the prompt

2. Go to WorldWide Telescope and download from there. It’s free! Don’t forget to read the system requirements first!

Previous WWT articles

WWT: Explore The Universe With WALL•E And Andrew Stanton

Sunshine — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:26:00 GMT

Microsoft Research teamed up with Disney•Pixar and created a virtual tour of the universe hosted by none other then……WALL•E!
WALL•E is assisted by award winning director Andrew Stanton, who narrates this tour.

“Using Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope, WALL•E takes you on a real ride through space,” Stanton said. “After watching the movie on DVD, the whole family will be inspired to learn more about the world in which we live and the universe beyond.”

WorldWide Telescope is a rich Web application that brings together imagery from the best ground- and space-based observatories across the world to allow people to easily explore the night sky through their computers. WorldWide Telescope has been embraced by the astronomical and education communities as a compelling, astronomical resource for students and lifelong learners.

“WorldWide Telescope is about making science fun for everyone,” said Curtis Wong, manager of Microsoft’s Next Media Research Group. “By working with Disney•Pixar, we’re enabling kids and families to discover the magic of the universe for themselves in an even more engaging way. What could be more fun than exploring space with a famous robot?”

He’s right, I watched the tour and learned from it, seeing WALL•E float around in it is an extra bonus. I mean come on, who doesn’t like this robot? You can go watch it too at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org. You will need to install WorldWide Telescope to watch the tour.

A teaser of this tour can also be seen on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Nice!

WorldWide Telescope
PressPass: Microsoft Research and Disney•Pixar’s WALL•E Explore the Real Universe
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WorldWide Telescope gone 3D – Equinox Beta available now

damaster — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:47:51 GMT

Yesterday Kip added a nice bonus liveblog covering the keynote of Rick Rash from Microsoft Research, which announced an update to their space-exploration software WorldWide Telescope. Codenamed the “Autumnal Equinox Beta”, the update now features a 3D-engine that renders our Solar System and the Milky Way in complete 3D. Additionally, according to the team, this update also includes the following new features:

• Tour animation - text and inserted images can expand, contract, move, spin, fade, etc within a slide.
• WWT can now be localized to your language of choice. To begin with, we've added a second language - Simplified Chinese.
• Hundreds of new images from the Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer space telescopes
• A new Astrophotography section, with images from renowned astrophotographer Jack Newton.
• New surveys : GALEX in the ultraviolet band, Fermi in the gamma-ray band, as well as sixteen surveys about the Cosmic Microwave Background from the WMAP Science Team's Five Year release.
• Fifty new panoramas of Mars and the Moon, from the Phoenix, Spirit, Opportunity, Pathfinder, and Apollo missions.

Here’s a view of Saturn using WorldWide Telescope’s 3D solar system:

Soon in the next month the WorldWide Telescope will also allow users to get their own astronomical data and images into WorldWide Telescope format, and to produce WTML files - the XML format that WWT uses, and allowing them to set up their own WWT Communities online.

You can get the latest version over at the WorldWide Telescope website.

WorldWide Telescope Stars In Virtual Earth

Sunshine — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:40:27 GMT

What does WorldWide Telescope have to do with Microsoft Virtual Earth?

Chris Pendleton explains:

… since Microsoft Virtual Earth is a part of that Microsoft Research project I thought it would interest some of you that we decided to include some of the WorldWide Telescope into Virtual Earth. Did you know that the Virtual Earth data centers host all of the data for WWT and that the actual Earth in WWT are Virtual Earth tiles? Well, now you do.

Hmm Earth – Sky, but what of WWT got into Virtual Earth?

The constellations. More specifically, the stars. In the latest release of the Virtual Earth 3D control, we included the accurate placement of stars in space. The stars are drawn leveraging the Hipparcos catalogue and differ based on magnitude and color. The Hipparcos (HIgh Precision PARallax COlletion Satellite) catalogue is the de facto measurement of the stellar parallax and the proper motion of the stars.

Neat! Chris also reminds us we can still download WorldWide Telescope for free! Go go go…

LiveSide - WorldWide Telescope
LiveSide - Virtual Earth

World Wide Telescope from MS Research is Live

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:12:25 GMT

While this isn’t strictly a Windows Live service, it is still very cool stuff and we told you about it when it was first announced, and now the World Wide Telescope is live and available for download.

Check it out now at http://worldwidetelescope.org

(thanks to Brandon and Twitter for the heads up!)

Now I’m off to download and check it out myself. Have fun!

Microsoft launches WorldWide Telescope into private alpha

Chris — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:10:00 GMT

It made Scoble cry, and soon it can make you cry too. The website for the latest Microsoft Research project, WorldWide Telescope, is now up at http://wwtelescope.com/. Here's how Robert describes it:

"So, back to the World Wide Telescope. You drag around the sky. There’s Mars. There’s the big dipper. There’s Betelguese. Etc. It’s just like the star party you probably attended in college.

But it has one difference between any telescope you’ve ever looked at.

You can zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.

We picked a point of light inside the big dipper. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Holy ***, it’s two galaxies colliding. It looked like a star. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom."

No sign of the download yet, with Scoble saying its in private alpha right now. If you're interested in finding out more, Sunshine posted a bunch of info on it last week. We'll let you know when its open to all.

Update: Thanks to Scoble's Twitter, here's the embed of the TED talk featuring WorldWide Telescope:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/224

Update2: Thanks to the pointer in the comments, there's also a small screenshot now up on the WorldWide Telescope website.

Earth? No, the Sky is the limit?!

Sunshine — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:11:00 GMT

We can already look at Earth with Virtual Earth, but what about the Sky? Microsoft doesn't have anything for that yet. Yes, that's right, YET! This might change on February 27th at the TED Conference in Monterey California:

Microsoft To Announce WorldWide Telescope On February 27

A source close to Microsoft says the company will launch new desktop software called WorldWide Telescope on February 27 at the TED Conference in Monterey, California....

The service will be accessed through a downloadable application - Windows only for now is what we hear. Users will be able to pan around the nighttime sky and zoom as far in to any one area as the data will allow. Microsoft is said to be tapping the Hubble telescope as well as ten or so earth bound telescopes around the world for data. When you find an area you like, you can switch to a number of different views, such as infrared and non-visible light.

From what we hear, WorldWide Telescope will be significantly better than Google Sky, which launched last August as part of Google Earth... The key is the user interface, which is seamless as you move around the sky and zoom in and out. Much of the Photosynth technology is said to have been used for the project. And the sheer amount of data Microsoft is accessing, said to be measured in the terabits, gives that great user interface something to show off...

Very interesting if you are into stargazing or astronomy. I hope it will be easier to use than Google Sky, I just had a first look at that today and it's still confusing me...