3D Weather Data Visualization in Second Life

An anonymous reader noted that the Second Life media blitz continues by saying that "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) with Aimee Weber Studio just unrolled a sneak preview of their educational project in Second Life (due to open in mid November). This appetizer of things to come features the three dimensional visualization of live weather (now on display at the Science Center)." Don't go there expecting that they have like every doppler radar in the US updating in realtime or anything, but it's actually a practical real use for Second Life.

Practical?

This is the easiest way to find out of it's cold outside?

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Shit I normally open the window wind open for 5 min while I get dressed, better than Mr. G and his forecast.....LOL

For $19.95 plus shipping, I'll send you...

...a Weather Rock.

When it's white, it's snowing outside.
When it's wet, it's raining.
When it's... :-)

Easier than getting my wife to check...

"Honey, tell me if it is cold outside. Do I need to wear my jacket?"

* expletive laden response *

"Does that mean it is cold, or just cold in hell?"

Already done

This has been around for ages and in much higher resultion. It's called a window.

Weather layers for Google Earth

Ok, I must admit, the way they represent it in Second Life is interesting. Symbolic, not realistic, but sometimes symbolization is simply more efficient than realism.

US weather radar layers for Google Earth [gearthblog.com].
3D pseudo-real-time global clouds layer for Google Earth [gearthblog.com].
And while we're at it, weather radar data for Canada [ec.gc.ca].

Oh yeah.. you can't use GE at work (as clearly specified in the license), so use the great (and open source) NASA World Wind instead [nasa.gov].

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Not in video games!

Take your hippie ways back to the 60's and leave my virtual worlds alone.

I want cutting edge, razor sharp, earth shatter reality.... and I want it to gut your belly so I can watch the virtual steam rise from the wound.

Now, off with you a

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WeatherBonk http://www.weatherbonk.com/ [weatherbonk.com] has a dynamic data layer for Google Earth with realtime temperature observations, webcams, radar, and alerts.

Second Life?

So I have to wait until afterlife in order to use it?
What about a solution which already works during first life?

Why is Second Life getting all this buzz now?

Has anyone actually used it? It's primitive at best and quite frankly looks unfinished and abandoned by the developers. I'll repeat what I wrote before here about Second Life:

I've tried this out several times. It's free and even THEN it's not worth it. Now

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This is a joke news, right? The service is the lousiest weather service I have ever seen in my life. No detail whatsoever about the weather and the 3D representation doesn't add any detail neither. It serves no purpose.

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I'm sure they were bribed... perhaps they were told that the servers run on Linux...

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In my experience, it's very much like MySpace but in 3D. However, it's a very interesting platform for live music - I've 'attended' a number of gigs there and been impressed with what's going on, and moreso with the potential once the technology catches up

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It is amazing crude but also wonderful none the less to think about what it might become.

It might become another damn waste of time and money. Oh wait; it already is.

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The internet was partly a damn waste of time and money in the early 80s. Just like SL there were stupid areas. I distinctly recall running emacs on a machine at MIT but telnetted to a machine in London. Why? Because I could. And better yet, I tried to sum

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It would have had to have been an invisible dome. You could easly fly over the wall.

Performance wise I tried that place out. On a dual core 3ghz machine with 4 gigs of ram and a 7900gtx nvidia card it was a bit slow in places. The graphics were nice but it

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Don't set the network bandwidth at maximum, set it slightly less than your upload speed.

I guess you never learned to use the search feature either if all you went to was the places with the highest number of people "Popular Places" Don't go there! Would

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When you go to a place that DOES have people gathered around usually ends up just being either virtual prostitution or porn. [...] 3D avatars that all look like nymphet women wearing very skimpy clothes [...] I felt like I was in some world that was made 1

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When you go to a place that DOES have people gathered around usually ends up just being either virtual prostitution or porn.

What do you mean, just?

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Actually, if you don't like what's there to offer in Second Life, DON'T USE IT. Why is that so hard to understand? It's not like there aren't any alternative ways to waste your time.

Another Second Life story?

I don't get why we get such a disproportionate number of Second Life stories on /.

For those who have never tried it: don't bother, it's not that cool. Unless you really enjoy 3d modelling and scripting, it offers nothing over regular text chat.

In 10 years,

interesting for about 3 minutes

I tried Second Life again recently expecting to see a lot of improvement since the last time there was some hooplah about it and I was disappointed. This time around, it was pretty much the same thing.

In the very early days of the Internet there was a pro

Previous Project was Traveler

I believe the previous projusct you saw was called Traveler, and it's STILL around. Stereo audio, very low bandwidth requirements, and worlds/spaces created by the user population. Pretty cool

WorldsAway?

There was something called WorldsAway. A 2d multi-user graphical chat world, heavily promoted by CompuServe at the time. I don't remember it being very good, but still going [digitalspace.com] and is now called VZones [vzones.com]. Intro demo is worth a laugh.

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"very early days"?

1998 isn't the very early days of the Internet.

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1998 ~= early days of the Internet now? Damn, I'm old.

a brief response from a person involved...

I wouldn't call this project abandoned as much as it is still under development. Reading the previous comments, my answer to having easier ways to find the temperature outside is "YES." :-) I recommend turning on a TV, reading the newspaper, or surfing to a web site of your choosing. This visualization should be considered a beta with the intention of showing what Second Life (or technologies like Second Life) may be capable of in the future. (Slashdotted before prime time, ouch)

NOAA and ESRL are looking at Second Life as a possible platform for educational outreach as well as visualizing some of our data much of which is inherently 3D rather than 2D. Our island, which will have more of a focus on education rather than data visualization is slated for opening in the middle of November. If you are interested in more information you can visit our web site (also under construction) at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/sl/ [noaa.gov]

Eric

Thank you for avoiding calling this "game news"

Second life might be an incredible simulation, but it's far from a game. It is interesting though.

3d Weather simulation though? I'm sure we've had that in multiple places. a large scale version is Flight simulator X which can now pull live weather data e

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I guess I spoke to soon. it's now game news *Shakes head*

overexposure

I work in Second Life. So I don't feel the need to be a troll and bash anything about it to tell the truth. Slashdot is running too many stories about Second Life. These stories get about 50 replies at most and are usually no more than rehashed press relea

Never mind realistic weather in Second Life...

I joined the other day to see what the fuss is all about. And I'm now totally baffled as to what the fuss is all about. I was looking at graphics that hadn't advanced since the hoo-ha about virtual worlds back in the late 90's. Crude and extremely diffi

This interweb thing...it'll never last

Honestly, only geeks and nerds will ever use the internet. No one else will care.

It sure won't...

As long as they keep giving us such primitive and poorly designed online experiences as Half Life.

You're right. Gopher is much better than

that thing out of CERN anyway.

Honestly...

I think the creators of Half Life probably still think Gopher is current tech. Did they just resurrect the code for the original virtual world stuff of yore and rebrand it? The web is about innovation - the graphics in Half Life are more crude than 100,0

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I think you're confused here. Second Life is the 3D 'virtual world'. Half-Life is the video game.

Doh!

Yeah. I blame it on being dog tired when posting that. It was a hard week for me last week.

So yeah, Second Life sucks, Half Life doesn't. Thanks for pointing that out :-)

Another option

If you're too busy living your First Life to check out the weather in Second Life, you can always visit the Great Blue Room...

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I heard some guy put a sun in there, but it's tricky, you can only find it in the daytime, and sometimes, it's hidden behind some clouds! That guy's amazing!

Gray

It isn't good or bad, its somewhere in between. Sure you could join up, give yourself some supermodel physique and tear ass around the world spouting the same dumb ass crap you would in your normal body. Dur, that's a given.

What I saw in my first few minut

when will Google Earth get live weather?

I've been waiting for a live weather layer in Google Earth for months. Makes sense right? Even if the imagery isn't completely up-to-date, the weather in the area is very helpful. Zoom, tilt, rotate, and see where that storm is going to hit! :)

Second Life? Account needed?

At the risk confirming my ignorance, I open my mouth to ask:

As I understand, "Second Life" (or "SL"), is a "Game"? It is sold by a third-party and uses network servers to allow player? Isn't there a subscription fee for access (besides the outlay for the i

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Ignorance confirmed :)

A quick jaunt to secondlife.com you would have seen a big orange box proclaiming membership is free.