The View from Your Window Globe
I love Andrew Sullivan's 'View from Your Window' feature. Readers from around the world send in their favorite shots, and over weeks and months you start to see a picture of the whole world emerging. Unlike the usual news-driven photography, these are all quiet, subtle shots without any commentary and few people. Individually they're not striking, but together they become something magical.
Andrew's already published a book of the best photos, but I've always wanted a more dynamic way to explore the hundreds of images. Last year I created an OpenHeatMap showing the locations, but VFYW always makes me imagine a day in the life of the planet, so I kept trying to imagine better ways to share that vision. The recent rise of WebGL meant I could finally build something truly interactive, a 3D globe showing the world taking photos as the day progresses:
It does use the latest HTML5 features so you'll need a recent version of Chrome or Firefox before you can use it. I have contacted Chris Bodenner at the Daily Dish to make sure they're happy with this new view of their content, but I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just a fan! A big thanks to the Google folks for their WebGL sample code too, MrDoob for his fantastic Three.js framework, and JHT for the earth textures.
Pete Warden's blog 