Marble is a

virtual globe A virtual globe is a three-dimensional (3D) software model or representation of Earth or another world. A virtual globe provides the user with the ability to freely move around in the virtual environment by changing the viewing angle and positio ...

application which allows the user to choose among the Earth, the Moon, Venus, Mars and other planets to display as a 3-D model. It is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

under the terms of the

GNU LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

, developed by

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

for use on

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

s and

smart phone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...

s. It is written in

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

and uses Qt. Marble is intended to be very flexible; beyond its cross-platform design, the core components can easily be integrated into other programs. It is designed to run without the need for hardware acceleration, but it can be extended to use

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

. An important user-experience objective being that the application start fairly quickly, it ships with a minimal but useful off-line dataset (5–10MB). Contributors have added support for on-line mapping sources such as

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...

and the ability to interpret

KML Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is an XML notation for expressing geographic annotation and visualization within two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers. KML was developed for use with Google Earth, which was originally named Key ...

files. Marble also provides

route planning A journey planner, trip planner, or route planner is a specialized search engine used to find an optimal means of travelling between two or more given locations, sometimes using more than one transport mode. Searches may be optimized on different ...

capabilities. A navigation mode called MarbleToGo was developed as part of Google Summer of Code 2010. It was later partially rewritten and renamed to ''Marble Touch''. ''Geothek'' is a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...

of Marble adding a statistics module, pixel maps, and a 3D view. It is developed and used by Austrian publisher Ed. Hölzel as atlas software for classrooms.

References

External links

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Geothek website
2006 software Astronomy software Earth sciences graphics software Educational software for Linux Educational software for macOS Educational software for Windows Free educational software Free science software Free software programmed in C++ Geography education software KDE Education Project Keyhole Markup Language Remote sensing software Route planning software Software that uses Qt Virtual globes {{KDE-stub

See also

References

External links