Don't mean to hijack, but if you're interested in 3D globes (and 2D projections), NASA has been working on porting World Wind to Web:

https://github.com/NASAWorldWind/WebWorldWind

and

http://webworldwind.org

The power of WebGL is awesome!

It isn't really fair to posters of a neat open source project for the top reply to be a hijack pointing people at a competing project, even if it does say "don't mean to hijack."

I totally agree and Cesium is a really cool project and I encourage people to check it out (the number of interesting applications they showcase is really impressive). Just proud of what our team has come up with and wanted to share.

That sounds like a ShowHN would be a better fit than a comment.

I disagree, more exposure is good

I feel like the UI in this would benefit from an arcball-style rotation with some momentum from drag gestures.

Like this: https://www.webglearth.com

Navigation/Rotation is inherited from the original Java based World Wind in an effort to provided similarity to users wishing to change platforms. A little different from the arcball-style, I agree, but at least there is a reason :)

There are plans to add momentum gestures to our Android platform (https://github.com/NASAWorldWind/WorldWindAndroid). Perhaps it should be added to the Web version as well?

I like the momentum, but on mobile (iPad) each move is a new place in my back history.

That's amazing! And is all the imagery in public domain?

Edit: I see 'bing', so maybe not. Also, if anyone related to the project is looking, the elevation model is extremely noisy and likely broken, so wrapping the imagery around DEM might need to uhh be looked at.

There is a mix of imagery in the public domain and available through commercial providers. You can even specify your own WMS source!

Interesting note on the elevation model, if you've got a second, can you open an issue on the github site with a screenshot of what you are seeing?