14 DAY TRIAL // Those of you who have found a passion in analyzing various aspects of the Earth and of the Solar System have now a new tool at their disposal to download and install on Windows-based PCs.
Dubbed Layerscape, this is a cloud-based tool that relies on the popular WorldWide Telescope. Both of them come from Microsoft Research.
Through Layerscape, people will find it easier to analyze and visualize data, create three-dimensional virtual tours of the Earth, or explore new perspectives on the planet.
“A cloud-based user experience, Layerscape employs powerful, everyday tools to analyze and visualize complex Earth and oceanic datasets—enabling scientists to gain environmental insights into Earth,” Microsoft explains.
“Users can create and share 3-D virtual tours based on their discoveries and collaborate with the Earth-science community in ways that previously seemed impossible. Build your own virtual tours and experience the possibilities.”
The new application arrives on Windows PCs for free, the same as the cloud resources that can be used for discovery and collaboration.
Not only will the app offer a powerful visualization engine courtesy of the WorldWide Telescope (WWT), in combination with the WWT Excel Add-in, but it will also provide various sharing capabilities to users.
It will also put people in contact with other enthusiasts and will offer them the possibility to actively participate at discussions. Some other features of the Layerscape tool include:
- Layerscape helps transform your data into information by combining freedom of perspective with spatial/temporal rendering and playback. - The 3-D environment with transparency control enables you to visualize your data—whether it be on, below, or above the Earth’s surface. - Time-series data support allows ephemeral data to appear and disappear as time elapses for more than 500,000 data points - Layerscape supports point, vector, and raster data—including map overlays, well known text, shape files, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, CSV, and more. - Story-authoring tools allow you to create rich, interactive 3-D visualizations and narratives.
You can find Microsoft WorldWide Telescope 3.0.60.1 Layerscape Beta listed in Softpedia as well, via this link.