Image of the Week - 14 January 2003

Glacial Migration Across the Northern Hemisphere

Kingsley Allan, associate professor with the Illinois State Water Survey, created an animation of glacial extents from an idea expressed in an earlier animation created in the 1950's for the Illinois State Museum. This modern updating of the animation displays new information about the progress of the last period of glaciation, and covers the entire northern hemisphere instead of solely North America.
The animation was created as a two step process in Maya. First, a growing shape representing the glacier was placed upon the background of a world map. Second, the rendered images were then wrapped around a sphere to create a three-dimensional representation of the Earth.
Maya, and the software and equipment used to produce the animation, are available in the VMIL.

Image Courtesy: Kingsley M. Allan, Illinois State Water Survey

Contact: k-allan@uiuc.edu