Global Natural Earth Visualization for Image2000 Platform

The proposed R/R&D effort seeks to develop three innovations that specifically address the NASA Earth Science educational program's dissemination and use of Earth Science Enterprise data and technologies by providing a complete, highly-portable, classroom-appropriate, global 3D Earth visualization environment. The proposed effort extends NASA?s Image2000 image processing platform with these innovations:1. Efficient, large-dataset (global) data handling mechanisms2. Availability of a highly-compressed, 30-meter global, natural color imagery dataset to be used with 90-meter elevation datasets3. User-controlled 3D terrain rendering capabilities with satellite imagery texture mapping.The combined result will be an integrated Image2000 capability to roam and zoom the surface of the Earth with baseline, natural color global imagery and elevation datasets. Existing Image2000 functionality will continue to provide analytical tools for processing any satellite imagery texture map prior to its 3D display. The 3D display becomes an additional user view window, augmenting the existing Image2000 2D image display window.The target applications of the proposed 3D Earth visualization environment are a variety of educational settings requiring intuitive, user-friendly interaction paradigms, with particular strengths in the K-12 and standalone hands-on kiosk-type image processing venues.