This project was developed as a proof of concept application. It was apparent to us from the start that on a planetary scale elevations represented as a heightmap will be nearly invisible if the scaling was kept consistent, it is only exceptional features (such as Olympus Mons on mars) that would stand out. As a result we decided to add a scaling factor to at least provide something interesting to look at. This scale issue pointed out that although is is possible to have the surface data modelled accurately (allowing for the error due to the fact that no planet is spherical), it is not generally practical since to see any kind of detail would require a very large amount of data at high resolution, and to appreciate it in proper scale would require viewing from positions that make the model appear flat anyway.
