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The WorldWide Telescope

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If you haven’t heard of this project, now is a great time to check it out.  You can find the project at: https://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

The Microsoft Research team has created this site which allows you to explore the universe in a very unique way.

I think you will be blown away from all you can do with this.  They currently allow you to download the Spring Beta and plan on updating and improving this program moving forward.

Note: Keep in mind is that the program does require 3D Graphics and DirectX to be installed in order for it to run.

Once you have it installed, it is easy to move around and look at things, such as:

WWT-1

There are also some tours which are very cool to look at and give you a lot of interesting and unique information.  Some of this stuff you can get in other places, but there is nothing that is this complete.  Here is part of one of the tours:

WWT-2

If you have kids or if you are just curious about our universe, I highly recommend getting this program and checking out all is has to offer.  Feel free to post on here if you find anything really cool in it and I’ll check it out.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2008
    It is possible that it is your graphics card.  Do you meet the requirements for it: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/experienceIt/ExperienceIt.aspx Also, you can post this on the forum for the WorldWide Telescope: http://community.research.microsoft.com/forums/95.aspx

  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2008
    Wow...I downloaded too and had the same problem.  These requirements are pretty formidable and are going to preclude a great number of users.  

  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2008
    Tim, I agree that the requirements are pretty steep.  Please also remember that this is still in Beta so they could change.  I would also recommend posting to the forum and getting a discussion going there on it.

  • Anonymous
    May 16, 2008
    why could direct x and 3d graphics be included in the download

  • Anonymous
    May 19, 2008
    David, I assume they didn't want to add direct x to the download so as not to make it larger then it needed to be for those that already have direct x.  And if you don't, then you still download it the same way and it takes the same amount of time.

  • Anonymous
    October 07, 2008
    When the app starts on my laptop, it brings up an error dialog indicating that I need "DirectX and 3D Graphics installed." The "3D Graphics" phrase is not clear.  I assume this refers to the video hardware requirement:

  • 3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance But other users are trying to "download" 3D Graphics, which is less than useful. . . .
  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2009
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 30, 2009
    where can i find the 3d graphics software online? if its free to download,great!