NASA World Wind Java has just been released in early access form. It is revolutionary planetary visualization software which you can utilize, extend, and embed in your own Java programs.
great news !
Lilian 
Yeah… Snagged the source from here:
since they took it down temporarily…
It is reasonably in a nice condition; client SDK being fairly small and compact… I’m already ditching the eventListener approach for device input in favor of polling and integrating my timing framework, er so that a “real” F-16 demo can be made and not a clunky one…
Also going to do binding generic work to port to LWJGL.
If you take the F16 to an altitude higher than ~150000 the app. completely crashes ;D
The issue with the initial release has been fixed and it is back on-line.
This seems promising Catharsis! And thanks a lot for the so great Friday evening! As you said, much beer must be consumed: mission accomplished! ;D Now I undestand why blahblahblah was drunk when he was with Catharsis a couple of months ago! ;D
Ken, all your demos during the general session were really impressive! I’m really eager to have a look at world wind and JavaFX! I haven’t had time since I were so busy with all the sessions at JavaOne.
Thanks! World Wind is out there now and our on-line photo editor / viewer will be available as open source soon.
Hmm… You had it easy after all… I mean you did walk back to your hotel… 
I am digging the WorldWind stuff though… It is suitable for game development and more… I’m thinking about some crazy X-com like direction could be fun especially since I assume switching to Mars would only require different datasets… …Or a 1942eque like deal with 3D models and some 3D directional capacity should be quite easy over smooth scrolling terrain backgrounds from various altitude levels…
Absolutely. Patrick Hogan from NASA (Project Manager for World Wind) frequently talks about the applicability for games. The F-16 simulator is an excellent example. It was built in only three weeks by a new engineer at the DiSTI Corporation who had never worked with either GL Studio or World Wind.
You’re right, Mars should be very straightforward to add. As a matter of fact it was working a couple of months ago but this was before major rewrites to the terrain rendering algorithm. We should all work on pulling in functionality from the .NET version of World Wind to bring the Java version to parity. This will be easier as soon as a source code repository is created. Take a look at the forums on World Wind Central which is where most of the discussions are happening.