Pseudo 3D Earth

Updated: Removed textures leaving only one, added glow controls, added FPS counter for performance comparison with 3D version.

Controls:
Use mouse position to control rotation
Use controls to adjust glow effect if you like.

Boss wanted to use globe models for few projects so he asked me if I can make some Flash that will show earth globe in 3D like fashion.

For those who are interested there are two ways to do it. One is using true 3D like Flash 10 stuff or libraries like PV3D or Away3D for example here is Flash 10 drawTriangles based work: [link]
This way allows to do some unrestrained rotations in 3D and has no limit for quality of textures but is more resource consuming and requires aether Flash 10 or third party 3D things and may be hard to implement.

Then there is another way which was here for a long time (since Flash 8 displacement filter came around) and it is based on DisplacementMapFilter used to displace texture and make illusion of 3D. That's what you see here. All you need for it is correct DisplacementMap. You can get one here: [link]

So this one is based on DisplacementMap filter meaning that not 3D is used. Only some distortion of texture that makes it look like it is 3D. You cam imagine a map of the world on which you put a large lens and move it


Update:
Hehe after adding mesh controls to 3D version I tough why not to add equivalent to displacement based version. Now you can control strength of distortion

Like with 3D mesh variant here are some funny parts too
Firstly set it to 0 to see undistorted map.
Then set it to 4000 or 62000 Be careful it is alive and hypnotizing