Littleton, Colo. - TerraMetrics Inc. has launched a new browser on the company’s Web site that provides visitors a closer view of the world and demonstrates a technology for serving large imagery data sets. The TruViewer browser enables users to explore the company’s TruEarth global 15-meter imagery online. Web site visitors can look at large regions from a distance, or zoom into and out of interest areas all over the globe. The JavaScript-based prototype browser operates within a standard Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.
Although TruViewer is serving compressed TruEarth 15-meter imagery, the company expects to add enhancements such as topographic shaded relief and TruEarth 30-meter imagery to augment the visual display of TruEarth 15-meter imagery. The company also plans to incorporate custom color controls that allow users to modify the TruEarth imagery color balance to suit their preferences.
“TruViewer allows our customers to interact with TruEarth 15-meter imagery and get a better feel for our products,” says Greg Baxes, president of TerraMetrics. “TruViewer is an important step in demonstrating the application of TerraBlocks server technology in a Web-based environment. This technology allows us to serve arbitrary imagery and terrain data into client web-based and stand-alone 3D terrain-rendering applications such as simulation, GIS, and Internet mapping applications.”
The server is a component of the TerraBlocks 3D terrain-rendering technology that the company is developing in part under contract to NASA’s Langley Research Center, Aviation Safety and Security Program. Research efforts are focused on highly accurate 3D terrain storage and rendering for aircraft flight displays.