SDSS and vista

[major n0ob]

so i got a new m1330 dell xps and i am very happy with it. however when i launch world winds the sdss does not work!!!
just to set things straight, I have turned off UAC, intalled WW in a c:\ww folder and every other world/toolbar options works (mars, moon, earth, venus, jupiter all a-o.k.). Even the "first footprint", wmap, and even sdss footprint selections work correctly but the sdss does not it just shows up black. but what is even more frustrating is that when i check the cache and download diagnostic it shows that i have downloaded the images to my hard drive ! so they are just eating up space without any way for me to view them. has anybody with vista experienced this? does anybody know what to do?

[Guest_Jim_*]

It has nothing to do with Vista (if Vista were an issue then I doubt any layers would work) the imagery just is not on the server, it would seem. This has happened before, but without the best connections to those that run the servers, we cannot do too much.
Hopefully I summer that up correctly.

[major n0ob]

so what does that mean? i mean i have a desktop pc that ran it fine under xp and then when i upgraded that same pc to vista it did the same thing? i doubt it is my internet that is at cabel speeds, it must be a problem with the program.

[Guest_Jim_*]

The SDSS imagery is stored on a server, run by a university I think, and it has gone down now and has been down before. Until the techs at wherever the server is stored reset it or do whatever it is they have to do that particular imagery will not be accessible. The other imagery, such as the WMAP and the footprints are not used as much so they are more often available. There is nothing wrong with your computer or the program, it is at the other end of the connection that the problem exists.
I may not be describing this well, so I can only hope someone like Bull or Tomservo or Patmurris could chime in as they know better what is probably happening than I.

[major n0ob]

i highly doubt that is the cause of the problem because everybody would be having that problem not just me. i know that i am actually downloading the images from the server because the cache is getting bigger and i don't get any connection error messages. it must be a problem with nasa world winds and vista

[Guest_Jim_*]

Originally Posted by major n0ob

i highly doubt that is the cause of the problem because everybody would be having that problem not just me. i know that i am actually downloading the images from the server because the cache is getting bigger and i don't get any connection error messages. it must be a problem with nasa world winds and vista

http://forum.worldwindcentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=13601
I too am having the problem, which is why I started that thread and posted about this time over a month ago, but nothing has happened. Too few people must look at the SDSS imagery (shame) so this goes unnoticed by most.
Yes you are downloading tiles, black ones that take up 842 bytes (actually 4096 because of the cluster size on the disk).
Here is my guess of what has happened to you; you have not looked at the SDSS imagery since before it turned black, or at least not in places you had not looked before. When you still had XP all those images sprang right up looking very cool (really is fascinating what is out there) but then you put on Vista. I am not sure about how things went at this point, only you would know, but if you did a fresh install of Vista, which means the drive was reformatted, then the World Wind's cache (unless it was a seperate partition) was erased just like everything else. After you reinstalled all your programs, including World Wind, you decided to see the stars and galaxies again, but now the heavens are black, because the only source for that imagery is the messed up servers which only give you black tiles. With XP the cache of imagery was there and accesible.
I fully admit that I could completely wrong, but tell me this, if the telescope imagery does not work, why would anything else? It all is after all running on Vista. My apologies if I am being rude. I will add another post to the other thread, to possibly get more attention for this issue.
For those that have advanced knowledge of WMS systems, is it possible to have a default background color or something? As the majority of the globe for the SDSS imagery is black, it would make sense to always give black tiles if the imagery is not accessible, such as outside of the area the imagery was taken of. If this is possible, that could explain why black tiles still come through when the imagery is down, it is the default.

[Guest_Jim_*]

I just checked on my XP desktop, and the tiles are still black.

[major n0ob]

dang so i am not the only one with this problem. at least that makes me feel better. but what i dont understand is why the server stopped providing the images, did they turn it of or something. i think i might try to figure out who is running the server at that university and call them.

[joejoejam]

guest jim*, major noob, joejoejam,

how many more user are having this same problem with the black tiles from worldwind sdss? and how can we hurry the repair of it?

does not work, however sdss does work in Microsoft's world wide telescope and google sky, can somebody work out a custom script to access those instead? or does somebody have a large amount of cache still?you could compress it and put it in a torrent.