Solar Walk - 3D Solar System model
By Vito Technology Inc.
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Description
*** 30% Discounted! Dragon launched by SpaceX can be tracked in Star Walk! ***
*** Optimized for the new iPad ***
*** Featured by Apple as Best Apps of 2010 and Best Apps of 2011 ***
*** The first app on the AppStore with real 3D TV Support ***
Have you ever built a Solar system model? Cups, bowls, and papier-mache balls are in the past, because Solar Walk is a time-sensitive accurate information-packed interactive model of the Solar system and the Milky Way galaxy.
“Amazing graphics, very informational, and very accurate. One of my favorite apps already! Worth the $2.99. The fast forwarding time interface is awesome!!!” by staceelo
"Solar Walk app is Out of this world :)
This app is so cool when hooked and played through an HDtv. The detail, music, and 3D toggle really set this apart from other apps like it." by HARR1SON
“This app is too amazing for words. Use it all the time and was worth the $.” by ilikeapps1234567890
“I showed my class this and they were all amazed! The planets looked so detailed and the Sun's glowing and fiery animation really captivated everyone's attention (including me!) I'd recommend anyone teaching or learning about the solar system this app. Five Stars!” by Kevan M
This 3D Solar System model lets you navigate through space and time, see all the planets in close-up, learn their trajectories, inner structures, history of their exploration, points of interest and more. It even has detailed 3D models of the most interesting man-made satellites. Use 3D mode to get a more realistic experience and zoom out to view and spin the entire Galaxy!
WHAT EXPERTS SAY:
“Zoom from Mercury to Pluto (which makes the cut in this app), passing each planet’s moons along the way. Because Solar Walk knows what time it is, the planets are in proper orientation to the Sun: Earth is dark where it is currently night and gradually lightens to daytime on the other side,”© by Sam Grobart from The NYT.
“Instead of exploring the night sky and deep space, you get to tour our Solar system in luscious 3D graphics. The iPad version is breathtaking with crisp graphics and beautiful color. The smooth finger controls combined with the spectacular graphics make this a perfect demo for the iPad. Dragging your finger to fly around the planets is a bit intoxicating, and I'm impressed with the smooth animation.” © by Mel Martin, TUAW.
MAIN FEATURES:
• GALAXY view - absolutely magical zoom out to view the whole galaxy option.
• TIME MACHINE - set any date you want including even minutes and take a travel through space and time.
• MOVIES - explanatory movie collection about the Earth’s phenomena.
• SATELLITES - real-time trajectories of the most interesting artificial Earth's satellites.
• LOCATIONS - arrow will show your current position on the globe, plus names of the biggest cities of the Earth, as well as sights of the Moon, Mars and Venus.
• INFO about all planets - general info, its name, its mass, radius, distance to the sun, internal structure with the picture and science missions.
• MOONS of DIFFERENT PLANETS: select a planet like Earth, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars or Urano and observe how many moons they have and their track around the planet. Select one of the moons and learn.
- MIRRORING - wirelessly mirror the screen to an Apple TV 2.
*No Internet connection required*
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ATTENTION!
Mind that to use the 3D mode you will need a pair of cyan-red 3D glasses. And, yes, we know that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, but by popular vote it has been added to the Solar System Model anyway.
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Vito Technology is a member of Moms with Apps, a collaborative group of family-friendly developers seeking to promote quality apps for kids and families.
Recommended Ages: all
Categories: Environment, Science
What's New in Version 1.9.5
- Added new music by Astropilot
- Object Lock feature: it allows users to lock the app on any planet of the Solar System and intended for classroom presentations, planetarium info panels, etc.
- Fixed bug with orientation and velocity of Uran and Saturn rotation
Customer Reviews
How to use Solar Walk with iOS - The Missing Manual
Solar Walk is a scale model of the Solar System where you get to manipulate space-time, measure the distance between stars, learn details about 97 celestial objects, and watch 8 fact-filled videos. This app contains: no portrait view, a handy search-and-visit menu, 151 large slideshow images, a beautiful Milky Way Galaxy, the Kuiper Belt, the Asteroid Belt, and amazing details of Earth, such as 3D satellites, icy poles, and city lights.
*USING OBJECTS*
To select an object and instantly zoom into it, either touch it or choose it in the search-and-visit menu. (Selecting a surface feature actually selects its celestial body.) To repeat that zooming action, touch the "rocket" icon (lower-right corner), which contains the object's name. The selected object is your center of zooming (pinch/spread) and rotation (rotate two fingers, drag your finger, swipe with your finger to keep it going).
Touch the "i" icon (upper-left corner) to: hide other icons, zoom in on the selected object's lit side, and open its vertically-scrolling "in-app facts". The iPad uses a drop-down box to display these facts - swipe sideways inside it to switch columns, and touch outside of it to close it. The iPod touch and iPhone use an "arrow" icon to switch columns, and an "x" icon to close it. To open the "search-and-visit" menu, touch the "magnifying glass" icon (lower-left corner). It contains a text-accepting search box, 937 listed objects, and touch the arrow next to a celestial body to reveal moons.
*OBJECTS*
Objects include: the Sun, the 8 planets (their shadows may cover rings but not moons), Pluto (an image of Ganymede is used in its place - see planetpixelemporium.com), 9 Earth-orbiting satellites (the ISS is shown with a few never-delivered modules), 25 moons (the moons of Neptune and Pluto have speculative appearances), 53 distant stars (binary status is ignored), and 840 surface features on the Moon, Earth, Mars (includes 5 Earth cities?), and Venus (Venus has heavy clouds that hide its surface, not thin wispy ones).
All objects (excluding surface features) are "small spheres" until you zoom into one and see its surface map, which will match the color of the object's label and orbital path (except for satellites). All labels, paths, and icons vanish when you touch where nothing is selectable, or after 10 seconds of inactivity. As you approach the ecliptic plane, the orbital paths of Pluto and the planets vanish.
*MEASUREMENT*
At the bottom center edge, the distance from the screen to the selected object's surface is shown (inaccurate for Charon, Io, and Neptune's moons). You can zoom in to about 80% of the selected object's radius, except with some binary stars. This distance measurement is hidden in Orrery Mode or when a satellite is selected. It starts in miles ("ml" is the British abbreviation), shifts to astronomical units (1 "au" is the distance between the Sun and Earth), and then to light years (1 "ly" is the distance light travels in 1 year).
If an object in the Solar System is selected, there are 3 visible ranges to zoom out to: our galaxy (130,000 ly to 200 ly), distant stars (labeled: 2,500 ly to 1 ly, unlabeled: 1,300 ly and closer), and the Solar System (3,200 au and closer). If you zoom out to the distant labeled stars, 1/3 of the resulting distance measurements will be off by more than 2 ly, especially R Leporis (400 ly too distant, or -400 ly), Situla (-350 ly), Betelgeuse (+173 ly), and Beta Librae (-90 ly).
The clock (upper-right corner) includes 5 sections (year, month, day, hour, minute), a "now" icon (returns you to the present), and little lines along the screen's right edge. To go forward (limit: 7000 AD) or backward (limit: 0 AD, where the app will freeze) in time, touch a clock section and then swipe/drag either up or down on the little lines. To time travel faster, select the Sun, and to limit it to less than a year, select a satellite. Beyond 630 au, the clock is hidden and paused.
*OPTIONS*
The "menu" icon (lower-right corner) contains 6 items... "Help" contains soundtrack credit and a video overview of the app. "Capture Screen" creates a screenshot (with orbital paths, and without object labels or interface icons) and sends it to Twitter, Facebook, an AirPrint-enabled printer, the Photos app, or the Mail app. "3D" turns on/off a red-cyan 3D effect (and hides the "i" icon), also providing true 3D output to 3D TVs. "Music" mutes/plays 30 minutes of wordless ambience, including some electronic percussion. The fifth item is the Inactive Viewing Mode, either "True-to-scale" or "Orrery". (Orrery Mode reduces the scale of the Solar System while enlarging Pluto and the planets - select a planet to see its enlarged moons.) When this app first opens, it only recalls the Music setting and the Viewing Mode.
The sixth item, "Movies", contains 23 minutes of video in 8 parts: the Cassini mission, the Zodiac, the sizes of 11 Solar System objects, the Moon's phases, and Earth's seasons, tides, solar eclipses, and important latitude lines. A slider allows you to watch the videos at your own pace. Narration and subtitle icons allow you to enable/disable them for all 8 videos at once. The Cassini video includes 6 slideshows, accessible by touching any of the images scrolling at the edge of the screen.
Three options are found in the iOS Settings app... The interface "beep" can be muted. The iOS output for an external display can be activated, if you choose not to use display mirroring. The third option is "Kiosk Mode" (or Object Lock), which limits the app in 3 ways. First, it requires you to pick an object from among Pluto and the planets ("none" is the default option), limiting which objects can be selected to only that object and its moons/satellites. Next, the six-item menu icon is entirely replaced by the "Inactive Viewing Mode" icon. And last, the search-and-visit menu is replaced by a loud 60-second Solar Walk movie trailer that includes a comet and a nebula (both not in the app).
Love may 17th update but...
I was hoping it to have the Kuiper belt objects but I still like
The update
Amazing
One of the apps ever. I can't wait to check every new update. Keep on updating and enhancing my favourite app.
- $1.99
- Category: Education
- Updated: May 17, 2012
- Version: 1.9.5
- Size: 368 MB
- Languages: English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish
- Seller: Vito Technology Inc.
- © 2009-2012 Vito Technology Inc.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.3 or later.
