Release notes
What each version of Kugelblitz brought.
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New
- Pointer: When you steer with the keyboard or the SpaceMouse, the pointer over the globe disappears until you move the mouse.
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Kugelblitz shows the Earth and its neighbours as a globe and as an atlas that you fly over smoothly like a pilot, even on an M1. Imagery, road map and topographic map lie on real terrain, joined by thousands of open maps from the library. Everything comes from freely available geodata, straight from those who publish it; you need no account.
Version 1.0 is the first public version. This is what Kugelblitz does:
New
- Maps: imagery, road map and topographic map (⌘1 to ⌘3) lie on the globe's terrain, light or dark. The road map shows road numbers on the signs of their country, stops and cycle routes, the topographic map shaded relief, contour lines, hiking routes and sea depths.
- Atlas (⇧⌘A): every celestial body flat in Equal Earth, Mollweide, Hammer-Aitoff, Mercator or Plate Carrée, around a central meridian of your choice.
- Scenes: “Blue Planet”, “Orientation”, “Hiking”, “In the City” and your own scenes bring back in one go (⌥⌘1 to ⌥⌘9) what is set in the sidebar.
- OpenStreetMap for the whole Earth from the Kugelblitz tile server, only for the area you see, without downloads and without regions, with names in the language of the interface.
- Buildings in 3D from official city models of many German states, the Netherlands, Vienna and Espoo, everywhere else from OpenStreetMap, with the shape of their roofs, their colour and material. “Info” (⌥⌘I) tells what is known about the building under the pointer.
- Library (⇧⌘B): aerial images, historical maps, elevation models and buildings from catalogues such as the Editor Layer Index, STAC Index, ArcGIS Hub and data.europa.eu, seen at once with “On the Globe” and taken into “My Places” with one click.
- My Places (⇧⌘L): your own places, lines, areas, images and sources in folders for each celestial body. KML and KMZ, GeoJSON and GPX go in and out, as well as GeoTIFF, WMTS and WMS. File → “Save as Video …” turns a tour into a film.
- Flying: with a SpaceMouse (no driver needed), keyboard, trackpad and mouse, all at once if you like. As a pilot, around a point or straight down, with smooth flights to any destination.
- Search: places, streets and addresses as you type, coordinates in almost any notation and links from map services. “My Location” shows where you are, and with “Follow View” the view stays there.
- Six celestial bodies: Earth, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Ceres and Vesta with real terrain; ⌃⌘1 to ⌃⌘6 fly across.
- Apple Vision Pro: View → “Show on Vision Pro…” (⌥⌘V) brings the globe all around you, without an app on the headset.
- Performance: no frame waits for data. At its first start Kugelblitz measures your Mac and sets itself up to suit it.
- Light and sky: the sun stands where it really stands, with day and night, mountain shadows, the lights of the cities, haze, stars, constellations, the Moon and the planets. The Time Shuttle sends the globe through days and years.
- Events: solar and lunar eclipses over 5,000 years, calculated and with their lines on the Earth. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and fireballs at their place and time, gathered in the list “Events”.
- Missions: the drives of Perseverance, Curiosity, Opportunity and Spirit and the flights of Ingenuity on Mars, to play back.
- Everything loaded stays in the cache, and Kugelblitze in the same network share it if you wish. Every source stands with its licence in “Sources and Licenses”.
- In German and English, with the units of your choice, a help with a glossary and “Report a Problem…” (⌥⌘R).