Monday, April 06, 2020

The Spherical Earth Society



Currently the British Library is busy digitizing its collection of around 150 globes and making them available as 3D interactive visualizations. Not wanting to be outdone the National Maritime Museum has also released a virtual 3D visualization of one of its historical globes.

The Mercator Terrestrial Globe was made by Gerard Mercator in 1541. Ten years later, in 1551, he made a companion celestial globe. You can also view 3d versions of Mercator's Earth Globe and Mercator's Celestial Globe on the University of Lausanne's website.

If you are interested in viewing more historical vintage globes then you should pay a visit to the Virtual Globes Museum. This site includes 3d versions of the 1507 Waldseemüller globe, a number of terrestial and celestial globes by the Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu and globes by the Venetian Vincenzo Coronelli. Miranda's World Map (1706) and Coronelli's Terrestial Globe can be explored in 3D using the State Library of New South Wales's Meridian application.

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