Hi Bill, No doubt you are ambitious, maybe even a little mad, but both are fine assets for a programmer. The other assets you'll need to temper these aspect will being patient in learning and coding, and being realistic with your short and long term goals.
Technically what you want to achieve is all doable with the OSG, and in terms of scaling to handling whole earth databases it's probably one of the best SDK's in the world for doing it - lots of the OSG users already use it for precisely this reason. With this great power comes complexity though, the OSG is a power users SDK that professional developers use rather than an entry level SDK. This does mean you'll have to accept a steep learning curve and be patient with getting to grips with it. Reading the published OSG books will be an invaluable tool. On the software tech front I think osgEarth may well be the best tool for visualizing the data you want. This NodeKit sits ontop the OSG and integrates very well. The alternative is to build your own pages databases using VirtualPlanetBuilder, but for this you'll need your own data. Robert. On 2 December 2012 07:29, William Temple <whtemple1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I am going to admit straight up front I have no idea what I am doing. > > I have an idea in my head for an educational application but since I am > not a programmer, a cartographer, or an artist I am finding that my > research has me treading water in a murky fogged coated abyss. > > There are so many options and so many paths to take those options, I have > an on going headache from the confusion > > I hope there will be some willing guides here who will point me in the > direction I need to go. > > A little history my 3 year old son loves the television shows Dinosaur > Train, Curious George, and Sid The Science Kid. He also enjoys helping me > play my on-line game OpenTTD(a transportation simulation game) So, I > thought to create a game where he could travel the globe and explore > history, geography, science, society et cetera. > > Details... > 1) first person so it feels one is walking amongst the pyramids et cetera > 2) 3D globe > 3) modes of transportation buses, trains, boats, planes, spaceships (for > that fantasy feel) > 4) “cut scenes” 1st person youtube type videos for the interactive feel > 5) KDE Marble Project GeoDataPlacemark type markers for information > > What I believe I need..... > 1) CPU Blitter running a node based 3D terrain engine using tiles (I > believe this will allow the application to run on older machines) > 2) 3 Layers.. a) Basic heightmap for terrain > b) Textures for differing levels of zooming in and > out (LOD?) > c) Shapfiles for maintaining data on cities and > places > 3) SketchUp images (free 3D graphics creator accessible to any one) > 4) cross platform so a to be truly open > > What I can envision.... > 1) an on-line server where people can “play the game” and upload > information > 2) 42000 users(I have a shapefile from Natural Earth which has a dbf of > cities and there are 42000 cities listed with 50000+ population. I do > believe at least one person from each of those cities will get involved. > 3) Users strapping web-cams onto bike helmets and baseball caps taking > scooter/walking tours of down town Tokyo, Pharaohs pyramids, the Eiffel > Tower, Roman Coliseum, and The Grand Canyon and posting to the site. > > What I am doing... > 1) teaching myself C++ using books, on-line forums and tutorials. > 2) learning how to sort, classify, choose, and then organize all the > various GIS type data. And there is a lot to understand. > > Am I crazy? Maybe my 2 programmer friends say I am. But I am an Aries so I > will tend to pound my head. So I hope some of you join in and offer advice > and guidance. > > Oh and by the way at this point my ego is in the corner cowering and my > sanity is hiding in the closet so if you also want to mention I am crazy go > ahead....;) > > Thanks, > Bill > > ------------------ > Read this topic online here: > http://forum.openscenegraph.org/viewtopic.php?p=51321#51321 > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > osg-users mailing list > osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org > http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org >
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