Small World

[Benson Shaw]

Just for fun:

I needed a world globe for a lighting artwork. This led to an investigation of surface array command to get map outline on a sphere That worked pretty well. I'm still trying to cut the sphere with the array outlines.

Blue one is mercator map as image texture on a sphere. Plenty of distortion at poles. Black circles at poles are map border.

Grey one is my polyline trace of same map placed with Create Surface Array on a sphere. Poly creation starts to lag after about 100 vertices, so I started new ones with new color. 2d polys made a hash. Converted the polys to NURBS Curves. Worked well, but came in upside down, so edited array to rotate the map 180?.

Vwx file rendered OGL, 2 MB so should open without trouble. Each globe on its own layer. Attached image is FQRW.

-B

[Bob Holtzmann]

Nice globe model. I tried the command "Model -> Create Animation" to create a Quicktime movie of the globe in Orbit Point mode, and it revolves perfectly.

[Benson Shaw]

It is fun!

I may redo with a map made with flatter projection to control the distortion.

(I am too easily amused)

-B

[Horst M.]

I request herewith an "I like it" Button for the Forum.

... I like it when software can be used to have fun, as well as getting work done.

thanks for sharing!

Horst M.