When users open Worldview, they will be met with a global map featuring a true-color base layer showing clouds and the visible areas of Earth's ocean and terrestrial surfaces. This default layer is created with data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the NASA's Terra satellite. Users can change the source of this base layer to the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the joint NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite, or the VIIRS instrument aboard NOAA's NOAA-20 satellite by clicking their respective eye icons under Base Layers in the layer list located on the left side of the screen. All four of these options show Earth as it looked within the past few hours.
To locate a particular location or area of interest on Earth, users can enter place names, regions (e.g., Singapore or Pacific Northwest), or geographic coordinates (e.g., 39.0493°, -95.6712°) in the search bar in the top-right portion of the screen. Users can also move to a location on the map using a mouse or trackpad and zoom-in (or out) via the “+” and “-” buttons on the right side of the screen.
Once users have zeroed-in on their area of interest, they can enhance the map's base layer by adding place labels, coastlines, borders, and roads by clicking the eye icons associated with these layers in the Overlays section of the layer list.
Adding Data Imagery Layers
To add more layers to the base map, users must click the orange Add Layers button at the bottom of the left side layer list. Doing so will open a large window called the layer picker that allows users to search for data layers by category or keyword. For example, users can click on the Hazards and Disasters, Science Disciplines, Featured, or Recent tabs, or they can type a word or phrase (e.g., aerosol or snow cover) into the search bar at the top of the window. Users can also filter the data layers by clicking on the filter icon in the upper left corner of the window and filter by temporal coverage, category, measurements, source, temporal period, whether the layer is a day or night layer, which DAAC or Science Investigator-led Processing System (SIPS) the layer originates from, and imagery type.
To view a chosen data layer (or layers) on the map, users must click on the orange checkbox next to the layer and then close the window by clicking on the "x" in the top right corner. The selected layer is automatically added to the Overlays section of the layer list. To change the date (year, month, or day) of the data appearing on the map, users can either type the date in the date selector found in the bottom-left corner of the screen, use the arrow buttons above and below the date, or click on their desired date in the timeline running along the bottom of the screen. Power users can use their keyboards' left and right arrow keys to rapidly move forward and backward through time.
