ELelwell·Dec 30, 2020
Dating further back, it might be even closer to this old "Chrome experiment" from about 10 years ago: https://github.com/dataarts/webgl-globe
In How We Built the GitHub Globedataarts
webgl-globe
JavaScript2014–2020
dataarts / webgl-globe · Archived
webgl-globe
WebGL Globe is a platform for visualizing latitude longitude based information using WebGL.
3Distinct people
3Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
3.8KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
WebGL Globe is a platform for visualizing latitude longitude based information using WebGL.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year3 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2014-06-20 18:08:34 UTC to 2020-12-30 20:18:32 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
3 sourcesCool writeup! I agree with this sentiment 100%: "the web is poised to embrace 3D en masse". And with the heady webgl adoption that threejs brings, we see sites with decorative elements that hog resources, inhibit user interactions, and make finding the actual information you are looking for a nightmare. It's a power tool, use it judiciously ;)
Post fails to mention how they are actually rendering the "dots". But I feel perhaps they are executing excessive draw calls. 100K is not egregious. ThreeJS docs include many instanced geometry samples. As well as library level particle systems and materials. All anim logic handled via shaders. Raw webgl points without textures are also very performant for things like starfields, etc.
Wanted to link up the original "webgl-globe". Visualization originally used at Google to see where in the world sear
Read the rest
ch requests were arriving from:
https://github.com/dataarts/webgl-globe
Here's the code on GH: https://github.com/dataarts/webgl-globe
And here's some info about the project: http://www.chromeexperiments.com/globe
You can also see a population graph: http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/globe/
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