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Domain: planet-earth.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to planet-earth.org.

Comments · 8

  1. strange logic by Dan9999 · · Score: 1 · on Three 3D Web Browsers Reviewed
    In the beginning they mention "We're here to tell you that the reports of the 3D web's death are greatly exaggerated." then at the end "Final Thoughts: Wait for ...."

    although after looking around this looked not so bad http://www.planet-earth.org/ but still feels like something made in the 90s.

  2. Free Software Alternatives by viveka · · Score: 1 · on MSN Virtual Earth to Take on Google
    Before Google Maps there were plenty of Free Software projects doing the same thing, but without such a slick UI. Now they've seen how to do it right, they're catching up. For a Free online mapping framework that works as nicely as Google Maps, try ka-map:
    Here's a demo site to see how it works:
    If you're interested in a snowcrash-like spinny Earth, I'm involved in a project to build a Free one of those - you can try it out today at

    You can zoom all the way from orbit to street level, in your web browser, in freely-navigable realtime 3D; also publish data directly to a spatial database and once we get the kinks out (want to help?) dynamically search within the 3D world.
  3. We're building Earth right here... by viveka · · Score: 1 · on The Thin Line Between Reality and Video Games

    The planet-earth project is building a realtime, immersive, user-created map of the whole world and everything in it. It's inspired by Earth from Snow Crash, among other things. We're building an open platform called 3map, Free Software under the GPL.

    We now have running code and actual funding from the Telstra Broadband Fund. We're on a one-year timeline. Contributors are more than welcome ;)

  4. geovrml is the basis of planet-earth by viveka · · Score: 1 · on Open Source, GIS and Data Visualization?

    Hey there Doc.
    planet-earth uses GeoVRML as the basis for our main data representation. See the thread around 4 below entitled Remember 'Earth' from SnowCrash? for more info; you may have to reduce your threshold to see it, it's currently rated (Score:2, Insightful).
    Note that there's an open source GeoVRML implementation, and planet-earth itself is GPL.
    [ hypermedia | virtual worlds | human interface | truth | beauty ]

  5. Re:Remember "Earth" from SnowCrash? by viveka · · Score: 1 · on Open Source, GIS and Data Visualization?

    Good hello.

    I'm the instigator of the planet-earth project. I'm a mere interface designer myself, but we do have real hackers involved as well. We have a CVS running at sourceforge, and are starting to document our architecture. More info is, of course, at the website.

    The main insight driving our project is derived from the data-is-difficult problem noted in another thread. We distribute the data-collection tsk among all our users. This is, of course, the only approach known to scale. Everyone knows a little about their local area. Handheld GPS units are becoming widespread, which makes things even easier. The readings from these things are superseding survey data these days.

    Even if you don't know your lat/long, you can still contribute to the planet-earth database: it's an immersive 3D navigable representation, with landmarks, waypoints etc. - so just zoom around until you find your house, and attach some metadata to it - This is My House! or This is My Local Cafe and it has Very Good Coffee but lousy service. If there's no geometry there, then upload a VRML file, or choose from the library of available archetypes.

    You don't have to navigate it in 3D if you don't want to; data is separated from representation, in other words, we do XML.
    We allow multiple conflicting data and geometry at the same point in geospace/time, no problem - it's up to the user's filter set to decide which version to display, based on their preferences. Dynamic filter queries, good stuff.

    There's plenty more to this, of course. Ask me in this thread, or email (address at the website).

    V.


    [ hypermedia | virtual worlds | human interface | truth | beauty ]

  6. Re:Remember "Earth" from SnowCrash? by viveka · · Score: 1 · on Open Source, GIS and Data Visualization?

    Good hello.

    I'm the instigator of the planet-earth project. I'm a mere interface designer myself, but we do have real hackers involved as well. We have a CVS running at sourceforge, and are starting to document our architecture. More info is, of course, at the website.

    The main insight driving our project is derived from the data-is-difficult problem noted in another thread. We distribute the data-collection tsk among all our users. This is, of course, the only approach known to scale. Everyone knows a little about their local area. Handheld GPS units are becoming widespread, which makes things even easier. The readings from these things are superseding survey data these days.

    Even if you don't know your lat/long, you can still contribute to the planet-earth database: it's an immersive 3D navigable representation, with landmarks, waypoints etc. - so just zoom around until you find your house, and attach some metadata to it - This is My House! or This is My Local Cafe and it has Very Good Coffee but lousy service. If there's no geometry there, then upload a VRML file, or choose from the library of available archetypes.

    You don't have to navigate it in 3D if you don't want to; data is separated from representation, in other words, we do XML.
    We allow multiple conflicting data and geometry at the same point in geospace/time, no problem - it's up to the user's filter set to decide which version to display, based on their preferences. Dynamic filter queries, good stuff.

    There's plenty more to this, of course. Ask me in this thread, or email (address at the website).

    V.


    [ hypermedia | virtual worlds | human interface | truth | beauty ]

  7. Remember "Earth" from SnowCrash? by abde · · Score: 2 · on Open Source, GIS and Data Visualization?

    Anyone remember the "Earth" application from Snowcrash (Neal Stephenson)? That seems to be the ideal point towards which all of this is evolving.. check out the Planet-Earth project which is directly inspired by Snowcrash as well as H2G2 and Everything2.

  8. planet-earth.org open source project by viveka · · Score: 1 · on Ask John Carmack About Quake - or Anything Else

    i've started an opensource project to create an immersive global user-created database, as you describe, at www.planet-earth.org. join us.