Virtual World

From Bennet

Recreate the World.

Do you want to jump in a car, drive to the airport, take a flight to anywhere in the world and discover. From the orient express, the oasen center, death valley to the pyramids of egypt, straight from your computer?. MK, join in the effort to digitize reality. You can either be responsible for a zip code in your area or join a group and help build it. I've started with zip code 5144, which is in Bergen, Norway.

Mapping the world in 3d is a nice thing, but there are many things stopping such projects.

The data available in the public domain is a 1km matrix, which is not good for anything, except maybe a flight simulator.

It costs alot to free government data, though it really should be free. F.eks, DTED data with a 30m matrix costs several thousands NOK if you want the data under a public domain license.

The first thing to do for such a project is create a map, like the OpenStreetMaps project is doing, but this way of doing it is a little questionable. The best way, with low budget, is to use perpendicular air photographs to first create a map, then borrow equipment to measure the height of the terrain.

This project is using NURBS exclusively.

NURBS are used to map Bønestoppen and the None Lives Forever project is a way to explore a virtual world. The name, None Lives Forever, comes from the fact that you're not able to visit all parts of the world in a lifetime.