Today we finally produced this first image of a coherent geographical time-space representation with air and terrestrial transport modes.
Air links are following the geodesic curve when the distance is greater than 2000 kilometers. Below this threshold the speed of the air service is lower which is expressed by the curving of lines high above the earth surface where the fastest transport occurs.
Still un-projected, a lot to improve in terms of readability, but already the basis of what I had in mind since the start of this project is taking shape. A great day today.
This has been, so far, the most intense shriveling movement in transport history, when the maximum available speed raised from 700 km/h with jets to the supersonic speed of Concorde.
Considering, in a simplified model, terrestrial speed of 100 km/h, say on a motorway or by train, the slope of cones takes this geometry. During this Concorde period, terrestrial speed was 15 times slower than the maximum available speed.
This image is very close to the idea of the chestnut that I announced in 2007. High quality image download link.
Using the library Cesium, and with great help from Thomas Leysens and Farouk Abdou, this is the first image (in higher quality here) out of this new project, producing a representation of global time space.
Very excited when I first saw it on my computer screen. This is the first time this image, which I had in mind for years, finally materializes.
Unfortunately it has proven very difficult, for me at least, to control cones geometry. In addition in Cesium it is not possible to draw geometries under the surface of the globe. the problem is that, conceptually, the time-space relief map model, everything occurs under the surface.
An exchange with Cesium developers has indicated an alternative choice: the library three.js, which has less limitations for our purpose.