The Natural Beauty of Planet Earth

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The ever changing surface of our home planet is what gives it its infinitely rich and detailed look. 

Planet Earth is a biosphere with both large and small natural phenomena, each only observable to those looking for it. NASA for example operates 26 missions in orbit to research our planet. 

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A living biosphere

The oceans, land, ice and atmosphere are continually changing. But they don’t operate in a vacuum. Change to the oceans affects the land and vice versa. 

Each aspect of the planet drives change to the other aspects of Earth. 

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During the production of our sci-fi film Syntactic Labyrinths we required a photorealistic rendering solution for Earth. 

That was way more difficult than initially expected. 

Many companies and institutions have worked together on creating a Digital Double for our planet. This is essential for simulating thousands of possible scenarios based on scientific measurements. 

However, none of the digital doubles available have been optimized for realistic 3D-rendering. 

That is why we developed Earth Digital, a 3D-rendering solution of Earth for film and animation. 

Every aspect of our planet is made up of unique layers that beautifully blend together to form the look we instantly recognize. The color of oceans, lakes and rivers are made up of plankton, aerosols, cloud fraction, water vapor and the rich aquatic ecosystem. 

The land masses are made up of an infinite number of variables such as trees, mountains, ice, cities and rich deposits of metals and minerals. 

It is truly mesmerizing to see how each of these variables has a measurable impact on the look and feel of the planet’s surface. If we then also consider the density of the atmosphere made up of ozone and aerosols, we get a beautiful color mixing through the principles of Rayleigh scattering.

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Conclusion

Our planet is infinitely beautiful, which only makes replicating it in 3D that much more difficult. We have a long road to go with Earth Digital but for now we have a solid foundation to build on further. 

Check out Earth Digital update 3.13 and learn about all the features and texture maps included.

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