After playing round with opengl for a little while I have come upon a few things which puzzle me, I was hoping someone who knows better or someone from the games industry could answer my question (probably very simple). I have created a 3D Globe with accurate land mass models (countrys etc). Now the problem here is I have a sphere (acting as the globe, ok i modelled it as an oblate spheroid, but we will say sphere) and land masses which have to lie exactly on top of the surface of the sphere. Now is it possible to get the land masses to lie on top of the earth without causing graphic glitches (flickering and Z fighting for example). Questions: 1: Is is possible to do this without using glPolyGonOffset? 2: How would the games industry/someone who knows what they are doing do this? 3: What should the Zbuffer limits be set to considering the radius of the earth is about 6000km, should i work in meters? I.E 6,000,000 or km 6000 or even 10's Km 600? What would be most optimal for the Z-buffer and for the solution i require. How would you do it? Any help greatly appreciated. Thanx Tom

Why not just texture the sphere?

I have to agree; just texture it.

move your near plane farther away.

Thank you all for your replies.

Texturing is not an option, I have very detailed coastline data, Texture maps could never convey this kind of accuracy especially not when zoomed in(even with swapping in and out of more detailed textures, the resolution just is not there).

As for zooming in and out, the initial view is zoomed out and i can see the whole globe, but i can zoom right down into say a certain part of the uk, this is why i am keeping with vectored coastline data.

Would 10-10000 be a reasonable z-buffer? I am looking into Z-writes as i type this:D

tom