Outline What is ossimPlanet Download and Installation Windows Version Mac Version Linux Version Basic Navigation Basic Usage Menus and Menu Items File Menu Preferences View Menu Edit Menu Layer Operation Window Menu Activity Tools Menu Ruler Adding Imagery Viewing Layers Saving Views

What is ossimPlanet

ossimPlanet is an open source 3D Earth visualization program that is built on OSSIM (Open Source Software Image Map) which allows you to visualize imagery on a 3D globe. Some functionality includes the ability to acquire imagery from OGC WMS and NASA Worldwind servers, create fly through animations, and to perform various layer operations for viewing and comparing several layers at once. Animations can be saved and viewed within ossimPlanet and views can be saved as a JPEG, PNG or TIFF.

Download and Installation

Windows Version

• ossimPlanet Download

Mac Version

• ossimPlanet Download

Linux Version

• ossimPlanet Download

Basic Navigation

Basic Usage

Menus and Menu Items

File Menu

Preferences: Allows user to enable various features of ossimPlanet
Open Image: Used to access and load geo-spatial data files into the planet. Most geo-spatial data formats are supported.
Open KML: Loads a GoogleEarth file (KML or KMZ) into the planet
Open Session: Opens previously loaded files into the planet
Save/Save as: Saves current project
Save View As JPEG/PNG/TIFF: Takes a screenshot of the current view in ossimPlanet and saves it as a picture file with whatever extension is chosen.
Save Animation Path: Saves a "tour" that can be made
Load Animation Path: Loads previously made animation paths
Quit: Terminates the program

Preferences

• Enable HUD: Enables Heads Up Display (HUD) for ossimPlanet. This includes the cross hairs at the center of the image and the latitude, longitude, elevation, and height readout at the bottom left of the display window (see previous figure).
• Enable elevation: Turns on or off elevation processing for topographic relief and visualization in ossimPlanet. Elevation processing requires that elevation data sets be staged through the Application Support directory for ossim (See ossimPlanet's tutorial for more information).
• Elevation Multiplier: Applies an elevation scaling factor. The higher the number, the more exaggerated the topography.

View Menu

Toggle Full Screen: Toggles between a full screen and window view (does the same as Ctrl + F)
Goto Lat Lon: Goes to a certain lat/long position that is entered by the user. Will navigate to that coordinate
Goto Address: Provides address geocoding. Converts street addresses into a latitude and longitude and then navigates to that point (not fully implemented).
Start Recording Animation Path: Records the "path" of view that a user takes.
Stop Recording Animation Path: Stops the recording
Play Animation Path: Playback of the "path"
Refresh Textures: Refreshes the view
Refresh All: Refreshes the view and all image layers

Edit Menu

Layer Operation

Implements various layer transitions. Includes various swipes, blends, and change detection algorithms that are shown in the dialog pop up menu shown below. All of the operations are performed in the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and operate on multiple OpenGL textures.

Top: Displays only those layers that have been positioned in the layers operations subfolder in the Legend Panel
Reference: Displays only those layers in the reference subfolder of the Legends panel
Opacity: Opacity of the operations layer is adjusted with the slider performing a blending operation with the reference texture
Horizontal Swipe: Moves a horizontal edge back and forth over the two textures
Vertical Swipe: Operates like the horizontal swipe, but instead with a vertical edge
Box swipe: Sets up a rectangular reveal area at the center of the view display. Moving the slider enlarges and collapses the rectangular reveal area
Circle Swipe: Sets up a circular reveal mask that expands and collapses as the slider is adjusted
Absolute Difference: Performs a simple pixel subtraction between the top and reference layers and displays the deltas between the channels. Therefore if the top and bottom images are equal the result would be a black image
False Color Replacement: Constructed by converting the reference and top layers into gray scale and takes the gray scale of the top layer and puts it into the green channel of the resulting image

Red: gray scale of bottom
Green: gray scale of top
BlueBlue: gray scale of bottom

Window Menu

Activity

Calls up a floating dialog that displays processing activity in the various processing threads. Display will show background loading of files and generation of overview layers when they are not present.

Tools Menu

Ruler

Two points can be selected and the geographic intersections with the planet will be used to calculate the distance in between.

Adding Imagery

Imagery can be added by going to "File" and then "Open Image". You can also add imagery by simply dragging and dropping the files onto the ossimPlanet screen. ossimPlanet is compatible with most file formats including kml/kmz files and it will display several layers simultaneously. Imagery could be from your own directories as well as through a WMS server.

Viewing Layers

ossimPlanet offers several different ways to view layers within the viewer. By going to the "Edit" menu and selecting "Layer Operations" you could change how the layers are displayed. Some of the options include: Opacity, Horizontal/Vertical Swipe and Absolute Difference.

Saving Views

ossimPlanet allows you to save the current view as a jpeg, png or a tiff file. These options are located in the "File" menu.
By opening the "View" menu, you can create animations and play them back in the viewer. The animation path can be saved from within the "File" menu.

For documents, data and more in depth tutorials for ossimPlanet visit:
ossim Downloads