Virtual morphometric globes: applying the software Blender

We describe the development of the first testing version of the system of virtual morphometric globes for the Earth, Mars, and the Moon. As the initial data, we used three 15'-gridded global digital elevation models extracted from SRTM30_PLUS, the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, and the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter gridded archives. We derived global digital models of several morphometric attributes (i.e., horizontal curvature, vertical curvature, minimal curvature, maximal curvature, and catchment area). We used Blender, the open-source software. The testing of the developed system demonstrated its good performance. Virtual globes clearly represent peculiarities of planetary topography.