Globe4D, time-traveling with an interactive four-dimensional globe

ABSTRACT

Globe4D is an interactive four-dimensional globe. It is a projection of the Earth's surface on a physical sphere. The sphere can be freely rotated along all axes, viewed from any angle and enables the user to control time as its fourth dimension. An application was created that shows the historical movement of the continents, known as continental drift. Besides the Earth, any planet or spherical object can be projected. This paper describes the background, aims, results and progress of this student project.

References

1. P Bourke, "Using a Spherical Mirror Projection into Immersive Environment", Graphite, ACM Siggraph, Dunedin, Nov/Dec 2005.
2. Y. Chen, J. Au, P. Kazlas, A. Ritenour, H. Gates, M. McCreary, "Flexible active-matrix electronic ink display" Nature, Volume 423, Page 136, May 2003.
3. Richard J. Lisle, "Google Earth: a new geological resource", Geology Today, Volume 22, Page 29, January 2006.
4. Eben Myers, Peter Coppin, Michael Wagner, Karl Fischer, Luisa Lu, W. Ronald McCloskey, David Seneker, "EventScope: Bringing Remote Experience of Mars to the Public through Telepresence", Infovis, Page 16, IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (INFOVIS'04), 2004.
5. S. Kettner, C. Madden, R. Ziegler, "Direct Rotational Interaction With a Spherical Projection", Interaction: System, Practice and Theory, ACM SIGCHI 2004.
6. Peter Freudling, Roland Haring, Helmut Höller, Horst Hörtner, Andreas Jalsovec, Hirokazu Kato, Christopher Lindinger, Dietmar Offenhuber, "Gulliver's World", Ars Electronica Linz, 2004 http://www.aec.at/en/center/project.asp?iProjectID=12771

Index Terms

• Computing methodologies

  • Computer graphics

    • Animation

  • Modeling and simulation

    • Simulation types and techniques

      • Simulation by animation

• Hardware

  • Communication hardware, interfaces and storage

    • Displays and imagers

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)