jaxlaw / dat.globe

dat.globe is a platform for visualizing latitude longitude based information using WebGL.

The WebGL Globe is an open platform for visualizing geographic information in WebGL enabled browsers. It supports data in JSON format, a sample of which you can find [here] (https://github.com/dataarts/dat.globe/raw/master/globe/population909500.json). dat.globe makes heavy use of the Three.js library, and is still in early open development.

Data Format

The following illustrates the JSON data format that the globe expects:

var data = [
  [
    'seriesA',
    [
      [ lattitude, longitude, magnitude ],
      [ lattitude, longitude, magnitude ],
      [ lattitude, longitude, magnitude ]
    ]
  ],
  [
    'seriesB',
    [
      [ lattitude, longitude, magnitude ],
      [ lattitude, longitude, magnitude ],
      [ lattitude, longitude, magnitude ],
    ]
  ]
];

Basic Usage

The following code polls a JSON file (formatted like the one above) for geo-data and adds it to an animated, interactive WebGL globe.

// Where to put the globe?
var container = document.getElementById( 'container' );

// Make the globe
var globe = new DAT.Globe( container );

// We're going to ask a file for the JSON data.
xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

// Where do we get the data?
xhr.open( 'GET', 'myjson.json', true );

// What do we do when we have it?
xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {

  // If we've received the data
  if ( xhr.readyState === 4 && xhr.status === 200 ) {

      // Parse the JSON
      var data = JSON.parse( xhr.responseText );

      // Tell the globe about your JSON data
      for ( i = 0; i < data.length; i++ ) {
        globe.addData( data[i][1], 'magnitude', data[i][0] );
      }

      // Create the geometry
      globe.createPoints();

      // Begin animation
      globe.animate();

    }

  }

};

// Begin request
xhr.send( null );