Developer(s) | Xeric Design, Ltd. |
---|---|
Stable release | 6.0 (Mac), 5.2 (Windows) / August 2012 (Mac), April 2012 (Windows) |
Operating system | macOS, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 |
Type | Computer wallpaper changer |
License | Commercial |
Website | www.xericdesign.com/earthdesk.php |
EarthDesk is a software application for Microsoft Windows and macOS that changes the computer user's desktop image to a constantly updating view of Earth. The software can be set to update daylight and moonlight coverage on the map, as well as live cloud images which are superimposed onto the map. The cloud option requires an Internet connection.
Features[edit]
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The map is fully customisable. Bias fx 2 full download mac. Users can choose between various map projections, whether to use a satellite image or political map, and whether to show night time and moonlight. The map can be centered and zoomed up to 400% anywhere on Earth. In addition to centering on a fixed point, EarthDesk can centre on the current position of the Moon or Sun. EarthDesk supports multiple monitors.
EarthDesk is an efficient software that is recommended by many Windows PC users. EarthDesk is a very fast, small, compact and innovative Desktop Enhancements for Windows PC. It is designed to be uncomplicated for beginners and powerful for professionals. EarthDesk is a curious application that substitutes your desktop wallpaper for satellite images that show a world map.You will be able to choose between various types of maps and see the evolution of the clouds, the change from day to night.
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See also[edit]
External links[edit]
July 2009, updated in April 2016
Earth Desktop Backgrounds
The following allows one to display current/live Earth images interactivelyon a planetarium dome (or iDome) using either a fisheye projection system ora spherical mirror based system. It uses EarthDesk to generate the sphericalprojections, and Quartz Composer to manage the display. It is provided mainlyas a demonstration for those who may not have used Quartz Composer, an excellenttool for interactive graphics. Quartz ComposerQuartz Composer is supplied free of charge with the Apple XCode development systems (also free). You are encouraged to look through the Quartz Composerpatch in order to understand what is occurring. When you are ready to runthe composition you need to enter full screen mode. pbmesh'pbmesh' is a Quartz Composer patch that implements the image warping techniqueused by the author to warp fisheye images for spherical mirror based projection(although it has a much wider range of application).pbmesh is also free, it needs to be copied into EarthDesk needs to be configured to save the image to a file rather thanplace it on the desktop. The setting for this is in the general preferencespane. The Quartz Composer patch will read this file at a time interval ofthe users choice. EarthDesk: Projection and zoom settings EarthDesk needs to be instructed to create an equirectangular projection, it isthis projection that the Quartz Composer patch will wrap onto a sphere. It wouldbe nice if EarthDesk had an option for a perfect 360 degree horizontal range,since it doesn't the user needs to adjust the zoom so that at least 360 degreesare visible. Controls are provided in the Quartz Composer composition to trimthe resulting image to 360 x 180 degrees before wrapping onto the sphere. Quartz Composer Composition Doom 2 download mac. The Quartz Composer composition is well commented.The following indicates some of the more important adjustments.The reader is encouraged to explore Quartz Composer, it is a very capableenvironment in which to create dynamic visual displays, including for planetariums.It should be noted here there is a slight 'hack' involved, that is, a fisheyeimage isn't actually generated. It relies on the fact that to a first approximationa circular objects in fisheye space is also circular. iDome example Update (April 2016) As with any document of this type it can get out of date with updates insoftware and operating systems. Version 7 of EarthDesk (this document updatebased upon the release in April 2016) does things a little different and thatwill be documented here. The setting to instruct EarthDesk to save files is now in the Advanced tab,select the 'Screen Saver Only' option in the pop-down menu. The images are now saved in a different location, the users Library folder andin the Application Support, see details below. The saving frequency can be adjusted in the Appearance tab.The scale determines the longitude range, 80% seems to give 0 to 360. If the texture doesn't form a perfect seam this scale needs adjusting.A new QC composition is provided here, it isonly slightly different from the previous version. Note the values in the imagecrop will still need adjusting, the exact degree of image padding depends onthe aspect ratio of the your display. Normally it seems only a vertical letter boxis required to remove the black bands at the top and bottom of the saved image.If you have pinching at the north and south pole, or back rings at the poles thenthe values in this crop patch need adjusting. Unfortunately my license for the earlier release is no longer valid so the examplesin this update have the unlicensed watermark. Note that while this is implemented for a spherical mirror, it could be easily modifiedfor simpler fisheye lens systems. |