You know what I'd buy?

[Foxster]

If Squad sold blow-up-ball models of the Kerbal planets then I'd buy a set. 

[Alshain]

Seconded!

It would be a good idea for something a little cheaper.  All the Kerbal memorabilia is insanely expensive, but beach balls pretty cheap.  Even custom printed after reasonable markup wouldn't be that expensive.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Alshain

[Foxster]

I'd probably also buy the special edition set with the biomes shown. 

[Snark]

Great idea.    Make 'em to scale, of course.

...reminds me of some fun I had, back in the day, when NASA first made available the Blue Marble image of "Earth without clouds", composited from oodles of satellite pictures.  There was a super-high-rez version that was in "lat/long" projection.

I wrote a computer program that could take that as input, then generate three images as output:  one for the arctic and northern temperate regions; one for the tropics and subtropical temperate zones; and one for the antarctic and southern temperate regions.  The polar ones looked like flower petals, the equatorial ones looked like a bunch of truncated lozenges touching at the equator.

Print 'em on a decent-sized printer, then take scissors, cut them out, and tape together to make a big globe.

It worked great, and looked pretty cool when I put it together.  I should go get some hi-res images of the Kerbal planets and do the same thing.  I think I'd have to re-write the program from scratch again, though-- this was years and years ago, goodness only knows where I left the source code lying around. 

[stibbons]

10 minutes ago, Snark said:

I think I'd have to re-write the program from scratch again, though-- this was years and years ago, goodness only knows where I left the source code lying around. 

If you've solved it yourself once, you're justified using somebody else's code the second time.  NASA have a map projector that's apparently pretty good - https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/gprojector/

[Snark]

1 hour ago, stibbons said:

If you've solved it yourself once, you're justified using somebody else's code the second time.  NASA have a map projector that's apparently pretty good - https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/gprojector/

Unless they have a set of projections that are specifically designed for "cut out with scissors and tape the edges together", I'd think it's unlikely to have something that fits the bill.

Map-projection packages like this are generally designed for generating flat maps of planets, not construction materials, in  my experience.

It may be that I'm wrong and that this package actually does have what's needed to do this, but there are far too many of them listed for me to go through them one-by-one and see if any of them fits the bill.

There exists a map projection that consists of a bunch of lozenges, touching at the equator, and extending all the way to the poles, which theoretically could be used for this purpose; however, in practice it's unsuitable, because it makes for a snarled mess when you try to tape all the points together at the poles.  My experience is that "flower petals, lozenges, flower petals" (or similar setup that avoids having many points coming together at one spot) is the only way that's practical for cutting-paper-and-taping-together.

[Kerbart]

It supports sinusoidal ("often shown interrupted") projections, so that would cover that.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Kerbart

[stibbons]

26 minutes ago, Snark said:

Unless they have a set of projections that are specifically designed for "cut out with scissors and tape the edges together", I'd think it's unlikely to have something that fits the bill.

Well, obviously.

I haven't personally done anything like this since primary school (and don't like to think about how long ago that was). But translating a mercator projection on to the sort of gores that these folk use is fairly trivial for any modern GIS package. Even funky projections like sinusoidal interrupted is on the list.

They're not the custom projection you were talking about earlier. But to be honest, writing your own software to implement your own map projection instead of reading about a list of standard ones sounds like some pretty extreme NIH-ism.

(Of course, if it's NIH-ism you want to do, go right ahead! Obviously you shouldn't let randos on the Internet tell you not to write software you want to write.  )

Edited March 6, 2017 by stibbons

[Snark]

4 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

It supports sinusoidal ("often shown interrupted") projections, so that would cover that.

Example?  Because the sinusoidal projections that I've seen don't work well for the cut-and-paste scenario I've described.

I'm not doubting you, I'm just asking "give me a picture I can look at". 

 

3 minutes ago, stibbons said:

But to be honest, writing your own software to implement your own map projection instead of reading about a list of standard ones sounds like some pretty extreme NIH-ism.

*shrug*

When I did it at the time, GIS packages were more limited, and I was working with them, and believe me, I went through every projection I could find.  They weren't suitable because that's not what they were designed for.  Plus it was fun. 

If someone has an out-of-the-box solution, great.  Just that I haven't seen one myself.

Also note that "make a globe" isn't necessarily the same problem as "make a paper cut-out".  If you've got a solid substrate that you can glue stuff to, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bit more design flexibility than when it's a hollow thing of paper where the bits are joined only at the edges.

[stibbons]

In a related but less precise vein, folk at my maker space were recently playing around with making polyhedron globes. I think creating a 12- or 20-sided Mun could be a fun weekend project.

[Snark]

6 minutes ago, stibbons said:

In a related but less precise vein, folk at my maker space were recently playing around with making polyhedron globes. I think creating a 12- or 20-sided Mun could be a fun weekend project.

^ +1 to this.  Icosahedrons are fun.  Dodecahedrons are cool, but somewhat more of a pain to cut out.

The nice part is that if someone does this, it's easy to share the image so that anyone can cut it out and play with it. 

 

[suicidejunkie]

The Kraken attacks your ship.

You'll need to roll a Greater Flats or better to save vs RUD.

[TheKosanianMethod]

I would buy these. Now I can throw Kerbin around!

[Foxster]

I'd quite like to give Dres a kick across the room. Useless clump of dust that it is. 

Edited March 7, 2017 by Foxster

[CaribouGone]

Hey, look! They already made an inflatable Jool:

[eddiew]

19 minutes ago, Foxster said:

I'd quite like to give Dres a kick across the room. Useless clump of dust that it is. 

It's not useless, it has many biomes within a short rover ride of each other. If you need science points, it's worth a visit   

Wish it had a bit of an atmo though, and maybe some hydrocarbon lakes...

[Foxster]

Yea, was just kidding. 

Dres could be a teensy bit more fun though with, say, purple space alien women to discover there who ask, "What is this 'love' you speak of? Will you teach us?". 

[nascarlaser1]

39 minutes ago, Foxster said:

I'd quite like to give Dres a kick across the room. Useless clump of dust that it is. 

DRESS RULES!

 

seriously though, This is an awesome idea!

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I'd buy that for a dollar

[linuxgurugamer]

Take a look at this: https://secure.profantasy.com/products/ft_features.asp

It can import data, and print out a map which can be taped together into a ball.  I've used it in the past.

Edited March 7, 2017 by linuxgurugamer

[Snark]

2 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

print out a map which can be taped together into a ball

Sounds great!  Where's the place that says it can do that?  (Was reading the web page and didn't see that feature, but I can easily believe I could have missed it.)

[linuxgurugamer]

Fractal Terrains 3 Features

Create Your Worlds

• Fractal generation of entire random worlds.
• Choice of continent size, land area and many fractal funtions.
• Automatic generation of river networks.
• Import real-world data sets that can be used to produce maps of Earth and Mars are included on the FT3 CD and free online.
• Import maps with color to altitidue conversion, allowing color contoured maps to be converted to FT3 3D relief,
• or, start with a flat world.

Edited March 7, 2017 by linuxgurugamer

[Snark]

11 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Import real-world data sets that can be used to produce maps of Earth and Mars are included on the FT3 CD and free online.

So you're talking about this?

It says "maps".  That's not the same thing as saying "maps that can be cut out and taped together to make a globe."

I'm not saying "it can't do this", just that I haven't seen anywhere that explicitly says it can do this, and my past experience with GIS packages is that even some quite detailed ones don't have that as an output option, unless they were specifically designed to do so.

If someone has actually used this package and can attest that it does this-- or can find a place on the website that says it does this-- then great!  Otherwise, seems to me that the jury's still out.

[linuxgurugamer]

I have used this to print out a world and tape it together.  Been a while, I'll check my version when I get home

[Snark]

7 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I have used this to print out a world and tape it together.  Been a while, I'll check my version when I get home

There ya go, thanks.  That was the missing ingredient.