World Wind is an extensive program created by the U.S. agency NASA, which can be described as a digital globe in the shortest time. World Wind allows you to view very high quality satellite and aerial images of the Earth (this applies mainly to the U.S., the images of our region are less accurate).

The model of the globe is three-dimensional, and the user can view selected fragments from any distance and angle of view (it is also possible to view the shape of the terrain we are interested in). Among other things, the geographical coordinate grid, geographical names, administrative borders, country and city names, as well as e.g. weather information, are displayed.

The functionality of the program can be extended with additional plugins, maps and photos. Thanks to the use of 3D technology, among others, World Wind is much more than just the local equivalent of Google Maps. Navigation is not a problem and is done with a mouse and a simple menu.

You can also enter the names of selected places and move to them automatically. World Wind has an extensive catalogue of countries, capitals, regions, cities and places of historical events. The number of displayed names increases with the zoom.

Three-dimensional models are available for some locations. System requirements - processor with speed of 700 MHz or more (recommended Intel Pentium 3, AMD Athlon or compatible min. 1.4 GHz) - 128 MB RAM (recommended 256 MB) - 3D graphics card (list of compatible cards) - Internet connection of DSL class - 1.5 GB of free hard disk space (recommended 3 GB) Note:

1. Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and DirectX 9.0c libraries installed in the system are required for proper operation of the program. Once installed, the program does not have all the images at once, they are downloaded from the Internet, if necessary.

It is therefore a good idea to have enough free disk space. The source code of the program can be downloaded here.