Nasa has released an amazing 3d terrain browser for windows. If you’re on a windows box with a reasonably capable 3d card, you simply must check this out. They use sattelite imagery to give you a photorealistic environment to navigate around in. Ever wondered what the volcanoes of Hawaii look like up close? Go check it out. Bottom of the grand canyon? It’s yours to fly through. This is amazingly cool technology. I immediately recalled twistory and tried to imagine what it would look like if it used an interface like this. When I run across headlines about the use of GIS data in education this is the kind of stuff I imagine, not the rather more dry (I know, I know, equally valuable….it’s still dry) kinds of uses it’s being put to today.