At this year's JavaOne conference in San Francisco, NASA developers showed that virtual globes are not only suited to explore geographic maps, but can also serve as rendering engines for other types of imagery.
The first public Knowledge Planet prototype, a java applet developed by a European team of researchers is now available (www.ecoresearch.net/climate). It visualizes large document collections using a landscape metaphor and was demonstrated by Tom Gaskins who leads the NASA World Wind engineering team at the JavaOne conference.
The peaks of the virtual landscape indicate abundant coverage on a particular topic, whereas valleys and oceans represent sparsely populated parts of the information space. The applet draws upon the extensive news archive of the Media Watch on Climate Change, which provides a continuously updated account of media coverage on climate change and related issues.
Further information about the Knowledge Planet, a screenshot and the underlying research project as well as the official press releases can be found at www.modul.ac.at/nmt/javaone .
Esri devMeetUps - locate a developer meetup taking place in a city near you
ERDAS Webinars - Register for a free, online webinar from ERDAS
ILMF 2012 - International LiDAR Mapping Forum, Denver, Colorado, Jan 23-25, 2012
Esri Dev Summit - The Esri Developer Summit (DevSummit) brings together developers and GIS professionals from all over the globe. March 26-29, 2012, Palm Springs, CA
Where2.0 - where the people working on and using location technologies come together to explore best practices and emerging trends in software development, tools, business strategies, and marketing. April 2-4, 20112, San Francisco, CA
See more 
