Notes on earthSurfaceImage
==========================

--GREAT: we now have a VERY large and consistent
	image that is very large for testing with
	our client visualization software 

	CLASS PROJECT: to put this on the web

	RELATED DATA: GLOBE (DEM) data,
		http://web.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/topo/globedoc.shtml

--Image information:
	-- a physical relief of the world
	-- There are 8x4 tiles, each tile is a 45 x 45 degree view
	-- each tile is a jpg file, 1350 x 1350 pixels, about 3MB.
	-- so the entire set is 100 MB large
	-- There is a SAMPLE tile that I downloaded in this directory

--From 
	http://web.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/2minrelief.html

--Overview of image data from website:

This image was generated from digital data bases of seafloor and land elevations on a
2-minute latitude/longitude grid (1 minute of latitude = 1 nautical mile, or 1.852 km).
Assumed illumination is from the west; shading is computed as a function of the
east-west slope of the surface with a nonlinear exaggeration favoring low-relief
areas. A Cylindrical Equidistant projection was used for the world image,
which spans 360 degrees
of of longitude from 180 West eastward to 180 East; latitude coverage is from
90 degrees North to 90 degrees South. The resolution of the
gridded data varies from true 2-minute for
the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean floors and all land masses to 5 minutes for the
Arctic Ocean floor. Clicking on a square above brings up a 512 x 512 pixel color relief
image of the 45 degree area selected, clicking on the 512 x 512 image brings up the
full-resolution 1350 x 1350 pixel (roughly 3 mb) color image of the area.