Building Worlds in Cyberspace

The most natural geometry for cyberspace is the one we're already most familiar with: That of Nature. Cyberspace should appear familiar, rather than as some foreign abstraction. To this end we will present the basic technology, stripped to its essentials, for creating visual representations of entire planets. These models feature unlimited detail without aliasing or large data storage requirements. Such planets are not an end in themselves, but rather a context for content: They will serve as the settings for simulated cities, artificial ecosystems, narratives and entertainments. A host of such planets will constitute a rich artificial universe, that universe being the natural visual manifestation of the "consensual hallucination" that is cyberspace.