Showing a bigger world, cheaply.

[animats]

Here's a potential feature for the viewer. At present, if a sim has to be displayed, but it's outside the draw distance, it displays as water. That always looks strange.

A first step would be to display the texture from the world map. That lets you see roughly what's out there.

But that's flat. So a second step would be to use the ground elevation data (which is only 64x64 for an entire sim) and texture the world map onto that. Then you could see mountains in the distance. Much like Google Earth at low level of detail.

Then, when you were flying a plane, you'd be able to see the airport and runway.  You could see for miles. Like looking at the world map, but in perspective and relief. The world would feel bigger.

This could be done entirely in Firestorm, without any help from Linden Labs.