The Virtual Globes Museum
The Virtual Globes Museum is a website which allows yous to sentiment historical vintage globes equally interactive virtual WebGL 3d globes. The collection includes public in addition to celestial globes dating dorsum to 1507.
The commencement globe inward the collection is the 1507 Waldseemüller globe. This was the commencement globe known to include the discussion 'America'. The label 'America' is placed on what nosotros straightaway telephone telephone South America. The collection too includes a release of public in addition to celestial globes past times the Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu in addition to past times the Venetian Vincenzo Coronelli.
The University of Lausanne inward Switzerland has released 2 interactive 3d globes which are digitized versions of the University's globes made past times Gerard Mercator inward the 16th century. The 2 late discovered globes be equally a homogeneous pair, 1 existence a terrestrial globe in addition to the other a celestial globe.
The University has used Esri's Scene Viewer to practise their 2 interactive 3d globes from Mercator's originals. This allows yous to inspect Mercator's public Globe in addition to Mercator's Celestial Globe inward special from your ain browser. The public globe is made from plates engraved past times Mercator inward Louvain inward 1541.
Mercator's public globe improves significantly on the Ptolemaic sentiment of the public which dominated during the 16th century. For example, his representation of the Mediterranean in addition to Africa are much to a greater extent than accurate than many other contemporary maps based on Ptolemy.
The State Library of New South Wales has too created a yoke of interactive 3d globes from vintage historical maps in addition to globe gores. Their Meridian application allows yous to sentiment virtual globes of Miranda's World Map (1706) in addition to Coronelli's Terrestial Globe.
Meridian was created using the Three.js library. You tin read to a greater extent than nigh how Meridian created their virtual globes from Miranda's 2 dimensional vintage map in addition to from Coronelli's globe gores on the DX Lab blog.