A rotating globe with Java

A

avalence

Hello,
I am trying to create a nice rotating earth globe (on mouse) on my web
site, in order to display my professional relationships all over the
world. The best way seems to be a java applet. I already found some
interesting java applets (LiveGraphics3D, Globe Applet...) but they
display a ugly representation of the earth. For example LiveGraphics3D
works with the 3D graphical objects of Mathematica (using
intersections of polygons). My question is how can I create a
BEAUTIFUL interacting globe using a quality satellite photo. This is a
very usefull applet for everybody. All suggestion welcome!
Thanks
Arnaud
 
K

~kurt

I am trying to create a nice rotating earth globe (on mouse) on my web
site, in order to display my professional relationships all over the
world. The best way seems to be a java applet. I already found some

Applets are horrible ideas for websites - especially if you are attempting
to advertise. You are only going to piss off those who you are are trying
to impress because they either don't have a Java plug-in installed,
they have it disabled, or they have an older version of Java that doesn't
support whatever latest and greatest version you used. Applets are about
as annoying as Flash animation.
interesting java applets (LiveGraphics3D, Globe Applet...) but they
display a ugly representation of the earth. For example LiveGraphics3D

Ugly! It is nice and clean. You put in a pretty Earth, and it will
only distract from the locations you are attempting to point out.
works with the 3D graphical objects of Mathematica (using
intersections of polygons). My question is how can I create a
BEAUTIFUL interacting globe using a quality satellite photo. This is a
very usefull applet for everybody. All suggestion welcome!

Use Java3D, create a sphere (maybe rotating), and wrap one of NASA's Blue
Marble maps over it. Maybe a page of code. Any non-ugly map is going to
be somewhat bandwidth intensive. Java3D is going to require the user to
download and install java3D. You could do it in the standard 2D (maybe
starting with either of the examples you listed above), but that is going
to require you to read up a bit on how to wrap map projections from an
image (something Java3D does for you automatically). Since no one is going
to install Java3D just to look at your globe, manually wrapping the image
yourself using 2D is probably the only effective way to do it with an applet.

If I had to do this, and if it didn't need to be interactive, I would
probably consider making a quick Java3D program, snap'ing images of
the globe every 5 degrees, and making an animated gif, or even worse,
a flash animation, using the series of images that were snapped. I don't
know much about flash, but I believe you might be able to make it
interactive. It would be quite bandwidth intensive with a non-ugly
Earth.

- Kurt
 
V

vysh

Hello,
I am trying to create a nice rotating earth globe (on mouse) on my web
site, in order to display my professional relationships all over the
world. The best way seems to be a java applet. I already found some
interesting java applets (LiveGraphics3D, Globe Applet...) but they
display a ugly representation of the earth. For example LiveGraphics3D
works with the 3D graphical objects of Mathematica (using
intersections of polygons). My question is how can I create a
BEAUTIFUL interacting globe using a quality satellite photo. This is a
very usefull applet for everybody. All suggestion welcome!
Thanks
Arnaud

In your case,java seems to be a completly messed up
idea!.If you aim to make your thing more attractive,I would rather
suggest some animation softwares.Macromedia Flash,I thing would do!
........:)
 
P

Patricia Shanahan

vysh said:
In your case,java seems to be a completly messed up
idea!.If you aim to make your thing more attractive,I would rather
suggest some animation softwares.Macromedia Flash,I thing would do!
.......:)

However, because of some bad experiences with Flash inserts that use a
lot of resources, I routinely suppress them. The globe would look to me
like a rectangle, empty except for a button to press if I am convinced
the advantages, to me, of the Flash outweigh the costs. That does not
happen very often - I'm more likely to leave a web site if it depends on
Flash too much.

My suggestion for showing the spacial distribution of professional
relationships is to take a nice, simple, projected world map, mark the
points on it, and show it as an image. Low resource cost,
non-distracting, easy to view...

Patricia
 
A

Andrew Thompson

vysh wrote:
...
In your case,java seems to be a completly messed up
idea!.If you aim to make your thing more attractive,I would rather
suggest some animation softwares.

LiveGraphics3D is not only animated, but interactive.
With a higher quality model (read bigger download) it
could render a higher quality globe (I am familiar with
the simple wireframe model the OP refers to).

LG3D is compatible with Java 1.1+.

OTOH - I agree with the general thrust of the
comments of the first replier.

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.athompson.info/andrew/

Message posted via JavaKB.com
http://www.javakb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/java-general/200705/1
 
S

Sanjay

Hello,
I am trying to create a nice rotating earth globe (on mouse) on my web
site, in order to display my professional relationships all over the
world. The best way seems to be a java applet. I already found some
interesting java applets (LiveGraphics3D, Globe Applet...) but they
display a ugly representation of the earth. For example LiveGraphics3D
works with the 3D graphical objects of Mathematica (using
intersections of polygons). My question is how can I create a
BEAUTIFUL interacting globe using a quality satellite photo. This is a
very usefull applet for everybody. All suggestion welcome!
Thanks
Arnaud

I understand it is more of a personal choice. However what is wrong with
a flattened out map of world? and with some SVG, you can do wonders with it.
 
R

Roedy Green

I am trying to create a nice rotating earth globe (on mouse) on my web
site, in order to display my professional relationships all over the
world. The best way seems to be a java applet. I already found some
interesting java applets (LiveGraphics3D, Globe Applet...) but they
display a ugly representation of the earth. For example LiveGraphics3D
works with the 3D graphical objects of Mathematica (using
intersections of polygons). My question is how can I create a
BEAUTIFUL interacting globe using a quality satellite photo. This is a
very usefull applet for everybody. All suggestion welcome!

You problem is to find a series of images. It is fairly easy to just
display them one after the other with a time delay. Try
images.google.com. See ImageViewer as part of
http://mindprod.com/products1.html#COMMON11

There is no need to dymically render a 3D image.
 

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