Quote Originally Posted by ninguid View Post
Hi all,
Not sure if this is handy or not but it is a rotating video of the map projected onto a sphere.
I used a similiar method when creating a 3D globe that I recently posted about in the finished works forum.

There is a bit of a seam on the backside of the globe where the ends of the image meet. Normaly this could be removed by making a 3D CAD model of the globe, but rendering an image/decal onto a sphere takes less time.

Angle of rotation could be set to any value. The frame rate could be varied to allow the video to rotate a certain number of degrees per frame.
This should be a 10 second video with 10 frames per second.

Zip file is 2Mb
I like it, thanks! The GooglePanisadore hack ultimately will have the greatest utility probably but this is a very good way to present the image simply and briefly. Since it just loads right into RealPlayer I couldn't find a way to alter the angle of rotation and the image appears to move around a perpendicular axis. In a way that's a good display since the continents are circumpolar - not rotating the image around the planetary axis is necessary to get a proper perspective on the land masses. However, I would like to be able to also rotate it on the planetary axis at it's actual 15 degree tilt and play with solar movement (the video shows a distinct light source which I assume can be moved as well). I'll have to look into your initial post (I noted the headline the other day but got sucked into other net-vortices) and see how you created this. Next on my mapping project list is to clean up the (well, produce a cleaner) original polar projections, at which point I'll try to recreate these projections from better images.

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