Shows how Earth was changing during the year 2004.
The “Blue Marble” Project
NASA has a always been a great reference for interesting pictures and textures. When I saw the Blue Marble Next Generation project wanted to create a interactive 3D version. I found all the necessary textures here. I scaled some of them, so the resolution is good for real-time appliactions, but still high enough (2048×1024).
The Model
This version switches between the 12 textures once a second (so one year equals 12 seconds). The beginning might look weird, but it will be okay once all the textures are downloaded.