Saturday, June 16, 2012

How to get started with the Digital Universe Atlas?

Screen shot of Partiview
Digital Universe is not a computer planetarium like, for example, the wonderful and equally free Celestia or Stellarium programs.

The user interface of partiview is unique 3D simulator and can be intimidating. Even experienced computer users may be baffled with its sliders, buttons and concepts.

However, where there is will there is a way! The developers of Digital Universe Atlas have gone all the way to help users to get quickly started with this highly accurate 3D model of the entire known Universe.

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Two!
Download Digital Universe Uncut from the website Hayden Planetarium  

[The difference in size between the stripped down and full versions is only 20 MB so select the Uncut version.]

Includes:
  • Partiview
  • The Digital Universe Atlas and Guide
  • Partiview User's Guide and accompanying data sets
  • 5 Educator's Activities (PDFs) and data sets
  • WISE brown dwarf simulation

One!
Uncompress the file into any new folder on your disk

[Even USB stick works since the software is fully independent and does not refer to other locations.]
[There is no install or uninstall - if you want to remove Digital Universe Atlas just delete the root folder and everything under it.]


Lift off!
Open the included Guide and off you go with the Milky Way Atlas! 

[The 229 page DigitalUniverseGuide.pdf is unusually comprehensive for free software. It covers everything in the Atlas but gives a soft landing with its clearly written and practical opening pages so that almost anyone can easily get started with this marvellous software.]

[If you can figure out yourself how to use the rich set of Partiview features that is great! But in the case of this particular software reading the manual would have saved you a lot of time and effort.]

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