Spherical World map workflow

[Troedel]

Some things are hard to get your head around. For me it`s the workflow for creating a spherical map.

My basic goal is to establish a spherical world map that I want to gradually refine. I would like to use Worldmachine for my main height field creation software as it gives me results I like. As the outputs of WM are strictly square there is no way to map those to a sphere without serious distortion.

My first impulse was to map small chunks in WM and georeference them using some GIS software ( for lack of money QGIS ). That would work for something the size of the UK but even then I don't how to seamlessly reference and create the raster info and stitch that.

Later on I would like to go deeper refining some areas while staying true to the coarser outlines.

Perhaps I`m in way over my head but if someone could give me some hints or tutorials I should read I would be thankful.

It has been done very well in the ME-DEM Project and I tip my hat.

Greetings,

Troedel

[Redrobes]

ME-Dem was georeferenced using Global Mapper GIS tool which is what the original contour lines were done in. When applied to the world in Outerra it was matched up around the europe area. Essentially tho, the map was vector but exported at 40K x 40K height map for processing. It was never processed out in a way that specifically made use of any spherical nature. We also never mapped the whole globe, just the 4000km square region.

[johnvanvliet]

i use Blender for procedural pseudo random full planets

this was from last night as a test
a heightmap and matching albedo map


now this is a guided RANDOM workflow