Re: FLASH: Rotating Globe

[John Croteau]

Hi all,


> Nathan's Globe http://www.vrlx.net in the bottom right hand corner

> of your main interface


> David'sftp://205.235.134.149/swf/DG_globe.htm

> (Tks to Daniel Votino)


> What, for the time involved, which determines cost to the client,

>  would you consider professional?

The question is which is more professional or actually which is more

expert?

Despite David's bias against spinning globes his globe is better suited

to the Web and the techniques he used are more expert. But both are

professional. Please note David did not include the time needed to

convert to a vector version of the map (an interrupted homolosine

projection). Of course most of us already have this in our vector

inventory :-).


The original question posed by Jayma

(http://www.danaeweb.com/demos/jk/globe.html) about a contoured Globe

that was offset on axis was never fully explored and it is much more

complicated than either David's or Nathan's globe.


The fact that a vector creation process is far more effective is

demonstrated by both Nathan's and David's methods. And simple conversion

from bitmaps to vectors of complicated items does not always produce

good results.

In Jayma's case the latitude and longitude lines which make up the

globe's wire frame should be constructed in vectors. The plain vector

filled outline of the continents surfaces should be added and the

underside added in a similar way. If you can adapt a flat map this would

be the best method. Note Antarctica should be applied separately. This

results in 5 (or more layers) layers and more detail than the 'simple'

globes David and Nathan created. 

Then apply a contour which could be either some creative gradients or

some bitmap fills based on a couple of bitmaps that are reused to fill

more than one continent. Alternatively, if the display is small then you

could have the whole land surface with a bitmap contour but all ocean

and areas should be a single color which will be transparent or deleted.

If you use bitmaps instead of gradients then your globe will vary more

if it is scaled.


The final component would be an alpha mask applied to give the left side

a slight brightening (whitening) effect. Note, this is not a masking

layer but a regular layer acting as a overlaying mask.


In summary 20-25K (or less) would be a good objective for Jayma's globe.

But since it is more complicated than the simple ones David and Nathan

created, it would take more time to construct. Of course if you have

unlimited time you could do a frame by frame vector optimization of a 3D

bitmap creation but the results if done properly would be great but

would unlikely be worth the effort.


-----------                               -----------------------

John Croteau

croteauerols [dot] com (mailto:croteauerols [dot] com)

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