The Xplanet project provides a nice cloud map which is updated every 3 hours and provides a worldwide view of the current cloud cover. I've added support to xearth for rendering the cloud map as an alpha-blended overlay over any other xearth map. Here's what it looks like in a worldwide context:



You can see how it enhances an existing image with this side-by-side comparison:



Finally, by tweaking the display parameters a bit you can view more localised cloud cover:



The next big step for xearth is to merge my xearth for Windows code into the main code base. This will displace the X drawing code from being the default GUI for xearth, and put them both on an equal footing. Naturally, other platform ports will then follow. (But I probably won't have that done by next week!)