December 24th, 2011
Presenting Geoscience Using Virtual Globes

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Virtual globes have increased in popularity since the first online offerings appeared in 2004–05. Since its release in mid‒2005, Google Earth has been downloaded over one billion times (Official Google Blog 2011), and there are now numerous virtual globe software applications available that cater to different audiences and industries.
As a platform for communicating and visualising geoscience data, virtual globes have a number of key benefits. These include :

• visualisation of data at a range of scales, from local to global
• three‒dimensional representation of terrain, helping to locate and contextualise data
• overlay and visualisation of different datasets simultaneously
• interactivity, allowing users to freely explore the data
• the easy incorporation of large datasets associated with the geosciences.

Like many other organisations, Geoscience Australia is using virtual globes as an important visualisation tool. In a ‘right tool for the job’ approach, different virtual globe applications are used to meet different needs; these include NASA’s World Wind, Google Earth and ESRI ArcGIS Explorer. This article focuses on the development of Geoscience Australia’s 3D Data Viewer and its use within the agency to share information with external stakeholders.