AVStar simulations are created from archived National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellite image data. GOES imagery is processed and combined with other complementary satellite data sets or models to achieve a representation of the color, topographical and night-side illumination qualities that will be provided by the AVStar cameras.

Lighting and color are particularly important components in simulations depicting the Earth's surface in the visible light portion of the spectrum sensed by the human eye. Photographic coverage that shows the entire Earth from space in "true-eye" color in all lighting conditions, and which might be used to create a model, simply does not exist today. Simulations of true color Earth imagery must therefore rely on models that extrapolate from incomplete data. ARC Science Simulations, of Loveland, CO, has been particularly successful in creating a true-color model of the Earth, and has provided the color for many of AstroVision's simulations.