The folks at Keyhole fuse high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, elevation data, GPS coordinates, and overlay information about cities and businesses to deliver a streaming, 3D map of the entire globe. They have a new product called EarthViewer and they’re “considering” a Mac version.
EarthViewer is an analysis and presentation system that merges satellite and aerial imagery with corporate and organizational data using the Earth itself as an interface. With it, the Earth floats on your screen. A mouse click zooms you to a city street in less than a second. Details as fine as .25 cm snap into focus. Another click turns on roads. Typing in an address zips you to specific building. Another click reveals icons and names for the surrounding businesses. Another click can add enterprise data such as MLS listings, demographics, crime reports or development plans.
EarthViewer delivers full screen 3D interaction on Wintel systems with a 3D capable graphics card and a broadband (128 kbps or greater) connection. The result: users can interact with a global geospatial database.
MacCentral reader William Crook is working to convince the folks at Keyhole to bring the product to Mac OS X. He said the ultimate graphics/visualization platform is the new UNIX-based Mac OS X running on a dual gigahertz G4 processors with an Nvidia GeForce Titanium graphics card.
“Not delivering a version of your awesome software to the huge Mac OS X marketplace — now the largest UNIX platform in the world — means keeping EarthViewer away from the platform best designed to demonstrate its capabilities, as well as leaving many millions of dollars in OS X revenue on the table,” Crook wrote to Keyhole.
He’s encouraging other Mac users with an interest in a Mac OS X version of the product to do the same. Customer support info can be found at the EarthViewer Web site.