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DESCRIPTION
Atmosculator is a freeware Mac OS X application, written using Cocoa & Objective-C, that calculates key properties of the Earth's atmosphere as a function of altitude using the 1976 Standard Atmosphere Model. It can be used to determine the pressure, temperature, density, viscosity and other parameters up to an altitude of 278,385 feet (84.852 km). The 1976 model is the latest of a number of versions developed jointly by NOAA, NASA and the USAF. The complete model includes properties at even higher altitudes, but these regions are more complex and are not included here.

Atmosculator also provides the option of calculating properties under non-standard conditions - i.e. when the temperature differs from that of the standard model.

Although the values provided by Atmosculator have been carefully checked against the original U.S. Government source, their accuracy cannot be guaranteed, so please use this tool at your own risk.

Atmosculator includes extensive Help on the basis of the model and a mathematical derivation showing how the properties are calculated. For your online convenince, this description of the Standard Atmosphere Model is reproduced here.

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WHAT'S NEW
Version 2.04:
  • application will now expire gracefully; it will warn of pending expiration once per day starting 28 days from expiration, and when the expiration date has been passed, the user will have the option to either quit or continue
  • minor changes to Help
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

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Developer:Graham Gyatt
Downloads:1,981
  - Version d/l:511
Education:Science
License:Free
Date:29 Jan 2008
Platform:PPC
RATING
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    Atmosculator User Reviews (1 post)Write A Review
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    Jan 15 2006
    ****½

    INTERSTITIAL  This is a great tool for educators and others just interested in the properties of the atmosphere. Although what it does could be communicated well in a more graphical way (sometimes, though, people can't interpret graphs well and then the usefulness is gone), it allows the user to interact with the numerical values and see the results. I especially like the speed of sound part - great when teaching about Mach values. Atmosculator could do with a preference setting to use SI units with just one click and an alternative input method (maybe sliders) that allows you to step the values up with clicks. It's still a great program for using but hiding equations.  
    (Version 2.02)

    praisebury
    0
    [ 1 Reply - Reply ]
    Replies:
    Jan 8 2007

    JUAN FALGUERAS CANO  It is a pity that this very interesting educational item insists in slugs(?), feet and other non international measurement units not offering at least a quick way for changing them all to the standard, that on the other hand are always used in the explanations as we all have learned in the schools. Also the output number format (engineering with things like 1.3e2) could be much better (130).  
    (Version 2.03)

    praisebury
    0