Video: Terravision presentation at Berlino in 1998

Tim Pritlove presents ART+COM’s Terravision (later also T_Vision) at the Telekom stand in 1998. Extract from a report by N3 (NDR).

Terravision was the revolutionary system for real-time visualisation of the entire Earth, consisting of aerial and satellite images and 3D architectural models.

The system was powered by a SiliconGraphics Onyx RealityEngine. The user interface was the “EarthTracker”, also developed by ART+COM: a giant globe (which allowed the globe to rotate directly on the screen without delay) and a DLR SpaceMouse, which allowed direct flight control and viewing of the Earth’s surface.

Terravision was developed in 1994 by ART+COM in Berlin and is considered to be the first system of its kind. For more than 10 years there was nothing comparable and the system was later plagiarised by Keyhole/Google and became known as Google Earth.

The Terravision story is also the basis for the Netflix miniseries “The Billion Dollar Code” (2021).