This Venus Globe has all clouds removed to show an exaggerated version of Venus' landscapes. The elevations from NASA Magellan and Pioneer spececraft have some missing data, so I took the data from the Soviet Union's Venera spacecraft and filled the globe completely. The Venera data has 1 degree grid and the Magellan data is using a 1/4 degree grid. The 150 factor for exaggerated elevations makes the peaks, like Maat Mons and Skadi Mons look very tall. If those names are unfamiliar to you, just google it to see 2D pictures. Or use this 3D sculpture to educate yourself. The pictures include the 150x and a 7x globe for comparison. On the 7x exaggeration picture, see the diagonal textured lines? They are real landforms called Textured Terrain. That is not an error. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/26/us/spacecraft-s-images-of-venus-s-terrain-astonish-scientists.html SPACECRAFT_NAME = MAGELLAN TARGET_NAME = VENUS OBJECT = TEXT PUBLICATION_DATE = 1991-12-31 BYTES = 80 NOTE = "MIT-MGN-GxDR v 2.3 Software Interface Specification" END_OBJECT = TEXT END The radar reflectivity rho' is computed from the sum of two factors, rho derived from the strength of altimetry echoes, and rhocor, a correction due to diffuse scattering that is derived from the SAR backscatter cross-section. These parameters were taken from the ar_rho and ar_rhocor fields of altimetry data files in the ARCDR product. To compensate for the latitudinal error, all rho values were multiplied by an 8th order latitude-dependent polynomial DATA_SET_RELEASE_DATE = 1992-01-15 PROCESSING_LEVEL_ID = 5 PRODUCER_FULL_NAME = 'Peter G. Ford' PRODUCER_INSTITUTION_NAME = "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" SOFTWARE_FLAG = N DETAILED_CATALOG_FLAG = N PROCESSING_START_TIME = 1991-06-24T20:11:00 PROCESSING_STOP_TIME = 1992-12-04T00:55:49 DATA_SET_DESC = "Global Topographic Data Record (GTDR). Alan Folmsbee writes: "I predict that standing stones will be found on Venus. The thick atmosphere slows down meteorites so they make a slow landing. The meteorites stand on the surface, intact."The Sinusoidal data files were re-sampled to make an array of elevations. Here is the link to all data for Venus that I used: http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/mgn/mgn-v-gxdr-v1/mg_3002/gtdr/sinus/ Re-sample that data so the sinusoidal projection is put into an array like Mars was. sub resample4 { $count_re = 0; for ($row=1; $row<$row_max; $row++ ) { for ($column=0; $column<$col_max; $column++ ) { $lat = -1 ( $row - 1 - $SPECLINE + 0.5 ) / $d; $lon = ($column + 0.5 - $PROJSAMP)/(cos($lat)$d) + $PROJ_LON_RADIAN; $lat_deg = $lat180/$pi; $lon_deg = $lon180/$pi; $lat_integer = int((90-$lat_deg)$resolution); $lon_integer = int(($lon_deg + 180)$resolution); if(($lat_integer<=$vrow_max)&&( $lon_integer <=$vcol_max)&& ($lat_integer>=0)&&( $lon_integer>=0)) You can see the cosine function is used in the Perl program. Trigonometry is fun! For questions concerning the MIT products and documentation: