I have a question in follow up to thoughts on the Geo bounding module question asked previously. It is more like a set of ideas and I wondered how well Perl would be able to facilitate.

I am interested in creating a 3D representation of a perfect sphere and then allowing a mapping of a real object like the earth on that representation. This would require the following:

1) A outer perfect sphere with a coordinated centre, and a known size.
2) Additional perfect spheres, within the outer sphere, with same centre, set at equidistance from the nearest neighbour sphere.
3) The surface of each sphere subdivided into polygons in a proportional, internally consistent and equivalent way.
4) Each polygon will have corners of an edge that is represented by a variable in a 3 dimensional array.
5) Each connection between individual corners of a polygon is defined by a set of equations.
6) Each polygon will not all be the same size obviously. But they are all definable through a two dimensional array, variable length horizontally.
7) With this array there can be reference numbers that optionally allow for more detailed description. This would allow more detail for each polygon on an optional basis. If the entire polygon represents fresh water there is no point in increasing the level of detail. Whereas if the polygon covered the Niagara falls then there might be.
8) Each variable of the different polygons for three different spheres will represent different geographic area sizes, however the level of potential detail will be the same for each variable in a one to many relationship, with use of references within a matrix.
9) Each descriptor will run to predefined characteristics that are expandable through a database. Types of top soil, for example, might be something one might want to add later.
10) There would have to be some capacity for describing distance above sphere surface. For example 50 meters above sphere is rock->water boundary. Similarly the other way around.


All this would allow for a complete X,Y,Z representation of the earth using arrays and database connections. What have I missed off, what modules can I use and what can I expect in terms of detail? Have I taken the best approach? Has anyone done anything like this before. It seems to be something that Perl could easily do. It doesn't even need object orientation I believe.

In reply to Earth as a sphere by betmatt

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.