New earth renders
Some time ago i did a number of renders of the earth surface using 1 km resolution data for both geometry and coloring. Meanwhile much higher resolution data is freely available which can be used for much better quality results in closeup views.
Note these are fairly old test renders made in 2004. Newer earth renders can be found on the Views of the Earth site.
The technique i used which is described on the planet renders page is suited for more detailed data. Instead of using two layers of different detail level i now use three different data sets.
Sadly there is no high resolution clouds data available so all these renders are made without a clouds image.
The data sources used are:
- For the coarse terrain geometry and the coloring up to 1 km resolution the
Blue Marble data sets.
The color images are based on the MODIS data
and include compensation for shading and atmospheric influences. The height data is put together from
various sources. - The detailed elevation values are from SRTM data
which is available between 60 degrees north and south in 3 arc second resolution.
- In some of the images i used Landsat
satellite images for the coloring. These images are available for download on
the OnEarth site. They require quite heavy color
post processing to compensate for atmosphere influence and the images contain visible banding from the different
scans put together as well as cloud cover in some places.
Here are some example showing a region in east Africa around Kilimanjaro:
| MODIS image | Landsat image (unprocessed) |
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| Landsat image (processed) | Landsat image (detail) |
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These are 3d renders of the same region showing the different detail levels of height and color data. The first three images use the MODIS image for texturing while the last one uses the landsat image.
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Here is a selection of renders i made from various regions on earth. All renders use the 3 arc second height data for the closest parts and the 30 arc seconds height map for a larger area around. Since these are rendered from a lower camera viewpoint than the images in the first earth renders gallery there is usually none of the very coarse global height model visible.
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The alps from south. |
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The rift valley in east africa. |
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New Guinea |
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Southern Chile, see also the same region in the old earth renders gallery. |
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Crete, southern Greece and Aegean Sea. |
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Gulf of Corinth in Greece. |
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Same with landsat image. |
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Southern romania. |
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