Copied from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing:
The earth rotates! edit
Imagine a map projection showing the whole surface of the earth on a flat screen, such as this image. That's a still picture. Is there software that can do the following? I supply in some form information specifying which map projection I want to use, and as output I see the rotating earth using that projection, say doing one full rotation every minute? I would want it to be scrupulously accurate and to look nice. And in a form that could be incorporated into a video that could then be uploaded to youtube. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
- MATLAB Mapping Toolbox can perform arbitrarily complex standard or user-specified map projections, and can be configured to use gory details and precise geodetic information from various international standards (e.g. geoid references like NOAA NGS). You could easily write a simple MATLAB program to load and set up the earth data, configure your favorite globe projection, and using the standard plotting tools, render an animation in 2D or 3D. Unfortunately MATLAB and its Mapping Toolbox are expensive. Nimur (talk) 17:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
- GNU Octave has a Mapping Toolbox as well; it is less well supported, but probably functional. These tools are free software. Nimur (talk) 17:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, Nimur. I'll see if the department whose computers I'm using has those. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)