NASA has collaborated with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Team to offer up some pretty 3D photographs on their website. The photographs include the Space Shuttle and Space Station and the Mars Rover. Not simulations or renderings, the images are from standard digital cameras used by the astronauts.
“Photosynth brings the public closer to our spaceflight equipment and hardware,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The space station pictures are not simulations or graphic representations but actual images taken recently by astronauts while in orbit. Although you’re not flying 220 miles above the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, it allows you to navigate and view amazing details of the real station as though you were there.”
They’ve also integrated a kind of digital scavenger hunt, with a list of hidden items buried in the photographs.
Requires a Silverlight install to use.
via NASA – NASA Releases Interactive 3-D Views of Space Station, New Mars Rover.
