Digital Earth Concept by Al Gore in 1990s

January 16, 2020

The tools we have most commonly used to interact with data, such as the “desktop metaphor” employed by the Macintosh and Windows operating systems, are not really suited to this new challenge. I believe we need a “Digital Earth”. A multi-resolution, three-dimensional representation of the planet, into which we can embed vast quantities of geo-referenced data. – Al Gore, Given at the California Science Center, Los Angeles, California, on January 31, 1998.

Al Gore used an imagined example of a kid to explain the functionalities of Digital Earth.

• “…sees Earth as it appears from space…”
  • A Digital Earth is a 3D representation, the entire Earth would be the coarsest resolution.
• “…zooms in…”
  • A Digital Earth should have multiple resolutions so that it is an interactive system instead of a static representation of the Earth.
• “…takes the equivalent of a magic carpet ride through a 3D visualization…”
  • A Digital Earth should support an “on-the-fly” visualization function to give users a direct and acceptable impression of the area they have interests in.
• “terrain is only one of the many kinds of data…”
  • A Digital Earth should store various data, across all kinds of fields.
• “…is able to request information…”
  • A Digital Earth should not only store and visualize the data but also support basic query functions that can answer users’ spatial questions.
• “…visualize…she and other students all over the world have collected as part of the GLOBE project”
  • A Digital Earth should support volunteered GIS, having citizens involving the data collection, theme map production, and even decision making.
• “This information can be seamlessly fused with digital map…”
  • A Digital Earth should have the capability to integrate multi-source data efficiently without the cost of complex computation.
• “…get more information…click on a hyperlink…”
  • A Digital Earth should have linked to other existing, non-spatial information sources, to enrich the spatial objects in the systems.
• “…follow the trail visually from start to finish…”
  • A Digital Earth should support the dynamic visualization, providing a virtual reality for the users’ requested scenarios.
• “…but can also travel through time”
  • A Digital Earth should also have multi-temporal scales, extending the 3D representation into more dimensions like time series. The temporal scales can range from days, years, centuries, or even geological epochs.