Marble - Desktop Globe 0.4 ("Sladibadfast")

[Torsten Rahn]

Name: Marble - Desktop Globe
Version: 0.4 ("Sladibadfast")
Type: KDE Education
Depend: Qt 4.x
License: LGPL
Homepage: http://edu.kde.org/marble
More Info:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=55105

Description:
 Release 0.4 of the Marble Desktop Globe.

Marble is a generic geographical map widget that
is meant to be used by KDE4 applications. It shows
the earth as a sphere but doesn't make use of any
hardware acceleration (No OpenGL). So although it
might look similar to applications like Google
Earth or Nasa World Wind it's rather meant to be a
small light weight multi purpose widget.

For more information please visit:
http://edu.kde.org/marble and
http://edu.kde.org/marble/obtain.php for
installation instructions.

Current features include:

* Marble uses a minimal free dataset that can be
used offline. Currently the total amount of data
that is meant to be shipped is about 5-10 MB. 
* Marble doesn't use OpenGL or 3D hardware
acceleration. It just uses Arthur as a painting
backend. Extending it later on to support OpenGL
as well shouldn't be hard however I don't consider
that the primary focus. Depending on your hardware
and the maps being displayed framerate is
approximately 5-20 fps. 
* Marble uses vector as well as bitmap data:
Currently it uses the MWDB II data combined with
SRTM. 
* Marble displays the world map as a 3D sphere,
because it's more fun to use and less subject to
distortion (So with regard to that it's just like
NASA WorldWind, Earth3D and Google Earth) 
* Marble should start up almost instantly.
Currently it "cold" starts fully within 2-5
seconds. On each subsequent start it takes about
one second.
* Uses KML-Import to display places (Google Earths
open format to store placemarks), Basic GPX
support.
* Cities Down to 12000 inhabitants that you can
click on using the mouse. Highest Mountains of
each continent. Automatic Placemark label
placement.
* Different Map Themes, Layers
* Dynamic Coordinate Grid
* Measure Tool
* Basic Wikipedia integration
* Tile Server support

Changelog:
 Platforms
 - KDE and Qt version:
 - Linux / Unix version
 - MacOS X version
 - Windows version
 
Features
 - KDE interface
 - International Dateline
 - Full screen mode
 - Plain map
 - Copy (&paste in other apps), Export picture and
printing
 - Saving of settings
 - Downloads tiles from KDE tile server
 - Support for Home Point
 - Legend
 - Handbook
 - Tooltips
 
Performance
 - performance fixes: appr 20% faster
 - performance: tile cache
 
Data
 - New data source for topological map: SRTM (1km
/ pixel)
 - Blue Marble Next Generation (500m / pixel)
 - Tile server support
 
 For the programmers: Marble Library which
contains: 
 - MarbleWidget, MarbleControlBox, both with
support for Qt Designer Plugins
 - APIdox
 - Work towards forward binary compatibility