MS "WorldWide Telescope"

[Adirondack]

FYI:

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.
Our guess is that this is what Robert Scoble was talking about last week when he said he saw a new Microsoft project that brought him to tears.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/18/microsoft-to-announce-worldwide-telescope-on-january-27/

ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/pub/tr/tr-2002-75.pdf


Adirondack

[selden]

It's not ready yet, but see
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

[buggs_moran]

Honestly, from what I've seen I like Celestia more. It seems to have the same if not more capabilities. The one thing that WWT will do (as does Google Sky) is download a picture (essentially one of our billboard nebulae) from the internet much like Google Earth. It could have an impact on people though, I know my students are addicted to Google Earth...

Check out this TED talk on the WWT... BE FOREWARNED TED TALKS ARE ADDICTIVE (I've spent hours there...)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/224

[adamnieman]

The first public beta of WWT has now been released:

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org

[selden]

Their Web site seems to be broken:
It complains "install flash or enable javascript" for both Firefox and IE, even though I have Flash v9, java and javascript enabled in both browsers.

....never mind: I needed to refresh the window.

[BobHegwood]

Just FYI...

Have downloaded and installed the "WorldWide Telescope" on my Vista system, and it is very cool.

A couple of notes for those who are curious though...
You MUST be connected to the Net while using the program. It needs to download various files as it is being used (or when it encounters a location it has not seen before.)
It uses MicroSoft's DirectX technology and this MUST be installed for use. If you have a Mac, then yer screwed.
As far as I can tell, you cannot easily modify anything that it does, although you can save locations of interest, and so forth.
Offers a very nice view of the Universe, and is exciting to watch.
Offers tours (with sound and explanations) of a wide variety of the features found in the Universe.

If you are a Windows User, I'd recommend a download.

Keep in mind, however, that it AIN'T Celestia. The program does offer many features, but you have to select them via drop-down menus and selections. Is not too cumbersome considering everything that it does and it is a lot of fun to view.

Again, just FYI... I like it.

[sdudley]

Personlly...

I'd rather fly "through" space than look at it through a telescope, not to mention I love all the cool user add-ons (fiction and non-fiction).

It is apparent from the video interviews that none of these people are aware of Celestia (or Orbiter), because they said there is nothing available (that they know of) to view space the way WWT will allow you to.

Besides, because of Celestia I decided to take a programming class and learn a little about programming. Hopefully someday, if I ever learn enough, I will be able to contribute something to it. For now, I'll just enjoy flying around space. As a matter of fact, I like it so much I built my own persnal flight simulator just to take full advantage of it.

[t00fri]

Personlly...

I'd rather fly "through" space than look at it through a telescope, not to mention I love all the cool user add-ons (fiction and non-fiction).

It is apparent from the video interviews that none of these people are aware of Celestia (or Orbiter), because they said there is nothing available (that they know of) to view space the way WWT will allow you to.

In one way this is correct: my dev friends have constantly ignored my pleas for incorporating multi-wavelength visualization into Celestia since years! The generic argument was that it was not so easy...

Now WWT advertises multi-wavelength displays as a main highlight ....

We could really have been first here and certainly would have found a way to master some impending difficulties.

Fridger

[chris]

Personlly...

I'd rather fly "through" space than look at it through a telescope, not to mention I love all the cool user add-ons (fiction and non-fiction).

It is apparent from the video interviews that none of these people are aware of Celestia (or Orbiter), because they said there is nothing available (that they know of) to view space the way WWT will allow you to.

In one way this is correct: my dev friends have constantly ignored my pleas for incorporating multi-wavelength visualization into Celestia since years! The generic argument was that it was not so easy...

I would love to be able to look at the universe in spectral bands outside the visible range. The reason I haven't pursued it because I don't think that the data is available to do anything more than a very incomplete implementation. This is especially true in the solar system domain. Someone needs to make a detailed proposal for how multiwavelength data should be incorporated. Nobody has done this. What data sources would be used? What user interface would be presented for mapping a spectral band to RGB for display? Even better, someone could a proof of concept demonstration.

Now WWT advertises multi-wavelength displays as a main highlight ....

Certainly, WWT has it much easier, as relies on much more homogeneous data than Celestia.

--Chris

[t00fri]

I would love to be able to look at the universe in spectral bands outside the visible range. The reason I haven't pursued it because I don't think that the data is available to do anything more than a very incomplete implementation. This is especially true in the solar system domain. Someone needs to make a detailed proposal for how multiwavelength data should be incorporated. Nobody has done this. What data sources would be used? What user interface would be presented for mapping a spectral band to RGB for display? Even better, someone could a proof of concept demonstration.

I think I made concrete proposals to almost all of your points in the course of time. Do you want me to sort my mails out?

I just gave up because I did not want to continue "beating dead horses" for too long . We could have put our knowhow together rather than (quote) YOU pursuing a multiwavelength implementation ...

I don't think that the data is available to do anything more than a very incomplete implementation. This is especially true in the solar system domain.

As a reply, it should be enough to realize that multiwavelength imaging is THE MAIN activity in imaging astronomy since many years.

Of course, you might imagine that the multiwavelength visualization area is another one of my "secret" activities since quite some time...

Fridger

[chris]

I would love to be able to look at the universe in spectral bands outside the visible range. The reason I haven't pursued it because I don't think that the data is available to do anything more than a very incomplete implementation. This is especially true in the solar system domain. Someone needs to make a detailed proposal for how multiwavelength data should be incorporated. Nobody has done this. What data sources would be used? What user interface would be presented for mapping a spectral band to RGB for display? Even better, someone could a proof of concept demonstration.

I think I made concrete proposals to almost all of your points in the course of time. Do you want me to sort my mails out?

That would actually be quite helpful.

I just gave up because I did not want to continue "beating dead horses" for too long . We could have put our knowhow together rather than (quote) YOU pursuing a multiwavelength implementation ...

I don't think that the data is available to do anything more than a very incomplete implementation. This is especially true in the solar system domain.

As a reply, it should be enough to realize that multiwavelength imaging is THE MAIN activity in imaging astronomy since many years.

Of course. But how much of this is in a form that can be integrated into Celestia? In solar system exploration, the spacecraft sent to explore the various planets, moons, and asteroids are all equipped with different sensors and filters. How do we collect all of this data to produce planetary texture sets? We'd end up with a huge collection of incomplete texture maps at a variety of wavelengths, with no consistency between different bodies.

To produce the visible maps that we have now, we rely on multiple data sources. For example, the maps of the Galilean satellites are composites of Voyager and Galileo images. These spacecraft had sensors with different sensitivities and probably different filters as well. How do these composite maps fit into the multiwavelength framework? Do we throw them out because they of lack of consistency in the data?

I think it would be very useful to have a set of complete planetary maps in bands outside the visible spectrum. These would work nicely with the existing alternate surfaces mechanism. The alternate surfaces list shows just the available maps. This is a huge advantage: a user can quickly find the interesting wavelengths (e.g. the methane window at Titan) and sees only the wavelengths for which data is available. But first, we should work on getting a complete set of maps at visible wavelengths.

In the stellar domain, the situation is much better, since we can (at least as a first step) use the blackbody spectra of stars to figure out how they'd look in different wavelengths. In the galactic domain, I confess some ignorance about the suitability of existing data sets for general multiwavelength visualization.

Of course, you might imagine that the multiwavelength visualization area is another one of my "secret" activities since quite some time...

Why not develop this out in the open?

--Chris

[t00fri]

Chris,

to cut that "endless story" short: for the solar system we need to exploit of course complete mission protocol environments like ISIS3. It was for a good reason that I started with a workshop on ISIS3 in CM quite some time ago. We are exactly in the same situation than any experimental astronomer wanting to implement such data from non-visual bands and fighting with sensor profiles and the like. All the respective (hardware) data one finds in the ISIS3 mission files, for example.

I have never pretended that the task was easy or straightforward. But MOST really interesting challenges are NOT. .

Of course. But how much of this is in a form that can be integrated into Celestia?

Certainly, this is not "fast food". It's hard work and requires joint efforts by more than one of us, with a lot of research of the literature and of the databases of the space agencies. That's why it's so interesting after all. And a lot of people in the Celestia community would have been VERY keen to go along the multi-wavelength "track".

Of course, you might imagine that the multiwavelength visualization area is another one of my "secret" activities since quite some time...

Why not develop this out in the open?

--Chris

Chris, we had this before. Implementations like multi-wavelengths or Cosmology require major restructurings of Celestia's code. You have the last word about Celestia. That's fine, but then I am NOT spending weeks to develop something whose implementation finally depends on YOUR taste. Instead, we should have agreed to go for multi-wavelength visualization long ago. And then we should have collaborated about it.

Since this was NOT to your taste, I have decided to do these (and other) things for myself, leaving the fate of the resulting code open for now. Sounds kind of logical to me . Because for such projects, I need to make decisions that apparently I can only make with my own code.

Fridger

[chris]

Chris,

to cut that "endless story" short: for the solar system we need to exploit of course complete mission protocol environments like ISIS3. It was for a good reason that I started with a workshop on ISIS3 in CM quite some time ago. We are exactly in the same situation than any experimental astronomer wanting to implement such data from non-visual bands and fighting with sensor profiles and the like. All the respective (hardware) data one finds in the ISIS3 mission files, for example.

I't not exactly the same situation. The huge difference is that an astronomer is focused on a particular body or feature or class of bodies. Some limitations make the visualization problem tractable.

I have never pretended that the task was easy or straightforward. But MOST really interesting challenges are NOT. .

Of course. But how much of this is in a form that can be integrated into Celestia?

Certainly, this is not "fast food". It's hard work and requires joint efforts by more than one of us, with a lot of research of the literature and of the databases of the space agencies. That's why it's so interesting after all. And a lot of people in the Celestia community would have been VERY keen to go along the multi-wavelength "track".

Of course, you might imagine that the multiwavelength visualization area is another one of my "secret" activities since quite some time...

Why not develop this out in the open?

--Chris

Chris, we had this before. Implementations like multi-wavelengths or Cosmology require major restructurings of Celestia's code. You have the last word about Celestia. That's fine, but then I am NOT spending weeks to develop something whose implementation finally depends on YOUR taste. Instead, we should have agreed to go for multi-wavelength visualization long ago. And then we should have collaborated about it.

I'm not going to agree until there are some details about how these features would actually work. If you have working ideas and code, then show it. I'd be convinced of the viability of multiwavelength in Celestia and we could proceed with collaboration.

Since this was NOT to your taste, I have decided to do these (and other) things for myself, leaving the fate of the resulting code open for now. Sounds kind of logical to me . Because for such projects, I need to make decisions that apparently I can only make with my own code.

It seems like a huge waste to do this in private and miss out on advice and constructive criticism from others. I urge you to share ideas and code for how multiwavelength might work. There's nothing to lose and much to gain even if you ultimately decide that you'd rather not try to fit it

--Chris

[chris]

Since this was NOT to your taste, I have decided to do these (and other) things for myself, leaving the fate of the resulting code open for now. Sounds kind of logical to me . Because for such projects, I need to make decisions that apparently I can only make with my own code.

One suggestion would be to create a branch in SVN for your multiwavelength and cosmological visualization modifications. A big advantage of SVN over CVS is that this sort of branching is straightforward. It's a great feature for development of major new features. If your experiments are fruitful, the code can be easily integrated from the branch back into the Celestia trunk.

--Chris

[t00fri]

Since this was NOT to your taste, I have decided to do these (and other) things for myself, leaving the fate of the resulting code open for now. Sounds kind of logical to me . Because for such projects, I need to make decisions that apparently I can only make with my own code.

It seems like a huge waste to do this in private and miss out on advice and constructive criticism from others. I urge you to share ideas and code for how multiwavelength might work. There's nothing to lose and much to gain even if you ultimately decide that you'd rather not try to fit it

--Chris

Who says that I am lacking advice or constructive criticism? . After all, I am a professional as concerns collaborations... But for sure, I don't want to change things into directions that I don't like astrophysics-wise, simply because YOU say so. That sort of thing is quite different from "advice and constructive criticism".

You definitely did not want to embark into a joint multi-wavelength visualization venture. And until a few hours ago you sounded exactly like some years ago. So I had NO reason whatsoever to do this development in any close contacts with you, did I?

Moreover, the multi-wavelength stuff is intrinsically tied to my cosmological developments (that proceed too slowly, though).. Since we surely will have different views about this part anyway, I suppose we better leave things as they are. Incidentally, my multi-wavelength code is of course not completed yet.

But anyway, I have essentially decided to offer my globular cluster simulation code to Celestia after a little final tuning. That's the easier part, since it smoothly fits into Celestia's present structure.

Fridger

PS: I just noticed your proposal of a separate SVN branch...It's certainly worth contemplating, but as I noted, both the multi-band and cosmological stuff requires MAJOR restructuring of the present Celestia. I am a bit tired of fighting about such basic changes each time ....
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Added: This gets us back e.g. to your "SPICE" way of implementing frames. How can this narrow framework ever be "bored up" to implement /space-time/ frames in general relativity as needed in cosmology ?? etc.
-------------------
So an independent venture might be the better solution in the long run. But I am not ready for that yet.

[t00fri]

Incidentally...this whole discussion seems like a "perfect" subject for PURGATORY!

Fridger