with texture mapping added by jestr.
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catal ... system.php
They can be downloaded from the Solar System page. They are called :
Venus 1x
Venus 200x
Earth 1x
Earth 200x
Mars 1x
Mars 200x
These 3D models come with two choices of vertical exaggeration of topographic elevations: 200 times and 1 time (no exaggeration).
Announcing a model of Earth with no exaggeration of topography.
The 8.2 megabyte file is in the .3ds format. It is not copyrighted.
There are 518,400 triangles making the surface of Earth.
You can download the file from my ftp website. It being donated to
Celestia with no limits. No credit needs to be given to me,
Alan Folmsbee, the designer of the model. Please feel free to copy,
modify, and distribute the model with no limits. It can be used without
textures, so the shape of Earth can be better appreciated.
The .3ds model was made using the land data from
the ETOPO2 database that has the elevation data from the GLOBE project.
Here is a list of the contributors to the GLOBE project :
Germany : German Remote Sensing Data Center of DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen
Japan : Geographical Survey Institute in Tsukuba
Australia : Australian Surveying and Land Information Group in Canberra
United Kingdom : University College London in London
United States of America :
National Imagery and Mapping Agency in Fairfax, Virginia (Name is now National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado
Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
The GLOBE Project is an internationally designed, developed, and independently peer-reviewed digital elevation model, at a latitude-longitude grid spacing of 1/120 of a degree. That is about a half mile at the equator, and finer near the poles. (The earth_1x.3ds uses a grid of about 30 miles near the equator, so most of the data from the GLOBE Project was skipped between grid points). The GLOBE Task Team was established by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites. It is part of Focus I of the Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. The ETOPO2 database was collected during or after the year 2000, and then a CD ROM was sold for $50 so the public could read and use the global elevations. The GLOBE project was started in Germany in 1990 by Gunter Schreier of DLR.
The earth_1x.3ds model has the depth data of all the oceans. Here are the organizations that contributed to that database :
Scripps Institution of Oceanography contributed the Smith/Sandwell report that used satellite radar altimetry to record gravity anomolies. This covers the oceans, except for the polar seas. Their grid was 2 minutes. It was published in 1978. The Institution is part of the University of California.
US Naval Oceanographic Office provided two Digital Bathymetric Databases. One is from the 1980's. They are called DBDBV and DBDV5 for the Variable resolution and the 5 minute resolution grids for the Antarctic seas. Their names are The Digital Bathymetric Data Base, Variable-resolution, and The Digital Bathymetric Data Base 5 minute. The USA Naval office is in Annapolis, Maryland in The United States of America.
The following nations provided the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean : Russia, Sweden, USA, Iceland, Canada, Norway, Germany, and Denmark. Also, France and Monaco are headquarters for international organizations that helped with IBCAO. Those are the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the International Hydrographic Bureau.
The topography data file (111 megabytes) can be obtained from :
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/2minrelief.html
But not all of the data was used. To keep the Celestia frame rate at 5 FPS on my system,
only 1/150 of the data was used. Two data points per degree of latitude and longitude. There are about 259,000 data points used. Data points are closer to each other near the poles. Here are 3 pictures of the model.
Above : South America and the seafloor trench to the West
Above : Pacific Ocean with north at right. California at bottom, Hawaii and
Alaska at center, and at top, from left to right, Marianas trench, Philipines Trench,
and Japan Trench
Above : Centered on New Zealand and Tonga Trench. Australia at left,
Antacrtica at bottom
Conclusion
The .3ds file was split in 10 pieces from the original .stl file, by Accutrans3D. Some seams are
visible on the .3ds model, but not on the original .stl file.
There are versions of Mars, Earth, and Venus models with topographical heights exaggerated by 200 times here:
http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php ... d20c81309b
