Main Screen

On the main screen that pops up when first launching the software, you should see the Earth, a Dataset menu, buttons, and a Dataset Title.

The Basemap is the overlay image that is displayed over the SOSx globe. This includes real-time clouds, topography and bathymetry, nighttime lights, and real-time day/night lighting and is the first thing you can see when you open up SOSx.

Upon first launching the application, you will see the Dataset Menu open. To close it, click the green arrows on the upper right of the box.

Click or gently touch the dataset title to load. To close, either load a new dataset from the menu or press the X under Loaded datasets.

The datasets are organized alphabetically by titles. If you want to see fewer datasets in the menu, the Category drop-down will refine your selection.

To pop up a window with the dataset description, click the i above the X.

For some datasets, there are videos, website links, or images included to help you understand the concept. If these are included, press the button icons on the right side of the screen.

The opacity slider is a feature you can use when selecting any Dataset to see the underlying Basemap of the earth. By sliding right or left, you can see more of the current Dataset that is selected, or more of the Earth’s Basemap. You can find this feature to the right of the Dataset Menu.

This allows you to switch between flat map and spherical map projection.

This brings options for geographical references to layer on top of any Earth dataset. For example, country borders or city names.

This tool allows you to measure distance on the globe with different popular units (i.e. feet, meters, kilometers…).

Clicking this closes the application. If you checked the boxes in the installation that indicated you are using SOSx in a public exhibit, you may not have the Quit button. You can also remove this button by going to the SOSx Configurator.

Clicking Tools exposes options:

• Analyze
• Draw (draw on the sphere)
• Measure (same as above)
• Feedback (send us a comment so we can track your experience)
• About SOS (opens our website)

There are three modes of analysis.

Probe - Allows you to click or touch the globe and get data values.

Transect - Allows you to draw a line and get data values in a line graph, which can also animate.

Average - Allows you to draw a triangle which computes the average for the data within.