BHUGOL

Sources & scientific boundaries

Bhugol Web V1 — data and visual sources

Bhugol Web V1 uses frozen reference data and does not acquire live observations. This page records the sources, visual interpretation and limits of the browser experience.

Geographic Earth — GEBCO_2026

The image is an unchanged copy of Native V1's audited compatibility fallback. The accepted native renderer normally prefers a larger material. The browser display uses the smaller reference, with its lower display resolution disclosed. The source grid interval is 15 arc-seconds; this derivative samples it at 10 arc-minute intervals. The material has 2160 longitude samples plus a duplicate east seam column. Source cell centers and sampling registration are recorded in the companion manifest.

Colour represents a continuous, compressed interpretation of signed terrain and bathymetry. The Web V1 renderer retains the exact GEBCO image bytes and applies authored ocean, vegetation, desert and polar colours in the browser. These natural-looking colours are illustrative, not observed land cover. It is not a satellite photograph, a numeric elevation measurement, or a terrain mesh with displaced heights. Display sampling, screen pixels and original source spacing are different quantities. No surveyed coastline, navigation precision or real-time conditions are implied.

GEBCO places the Grid and derived information products in the public domain. Its terms permit copying, publishing, adaptation, redistribution and commercial use with source acknowledgement, no implied official status or endorsement, and no misrepresentation. The product must not be used for navigation or safety at sea. It contains varied underlying data and interpolation; accuracy and completeness are not guaranteed.

Bhugol Web V1 retains the GEBCO_2026 reference. There is no automatic data update. GEBCO generally releases new grids annually; changing this pin requires a separate provenance, rights, errata and browser qualification review.

Political Earth — Natural Earth

The accepted geography contains 242 country/territory records, 1,632 rings and 99,613 ring points. Those counts describe this frozen dataset, not a claim about the number of universally recognized sovereign states. It contains no globally adopted first-order subdivision layer. Preserve duplicate ISO identifiers and the native name-based style mapping; country records must not be silently merged by ISO code.

The source uses Natural Earth's default de facto representation. It is not a legal boundary determination, endorsement of a territorial claim or guarantee of compliance in every jurisdiction. No new disputed boundary, claim line or alternate worldview is invented here. Colour differentiates records and carries no political meaning. The muted Bhugol palette and its cyan bias come from the accepted native visual authority.

Natural Earth raster and vector map data are public domain. Its terms permit modification, electronic dissemination and commercial use without permission; upstream attribution is optional. Bhugol retains attribution for traceability. Keep the frozen source version and its classifications; no live refresh or silent data replacement is enabled. Any web rasterization or packaging derivative must retain its source hash, source classification and processing receipt.

The Political view retains the exact 242 records and accepted seven-colour style. Its 2048 × 1024 material at /data/political-006.png (SHA-256 9952fe8fd2a8e2470a977cf68fdf6b1f288eefc03efb215ee6e656d354ecc191) is generated by src/earth/PoliticalRasterizer.ts from the verified JSON derivative; it adds a separate stroke pass over the same source rings. This avoids repeated browser rasterization. Boundary position is limited by the 2048-pixel material, unlike Native's view-space vector stroke. Political tint is attenuated on the dark hemisphere by the same UTC Sun used for Geographic shading; line contrast remains a thematic aid and does not represent sunlight. It does not introduce subdivisions, new claims or a live political feed.

The Web V1 Political view keeps that exact image, geometry, palette and night-side rule. It samples the existing mip chain with a modest negative level-of-detail bias in Political mode and reduces the overlying illustrative cloud opacity from 0.17 to 0.10. These display choices improve boundary separation at ordinary and moderate zoom without adding a texture or draw pass. They do not increase the source's geographic precision, and fine edges can still soften or shimmer at some viewing angles.

Existing unused coastline file

/ne_110m_land.geojson remains from the isolated website baseline. It is unused legacy data for the new Geographic/Political rendering, not a newly acquired or more precise coastline. Its SHA-256 is 9e0729ee253ca7d7a5c4ae9395fb1902264c5377c52e224d13dd85010e2835d9.

It is identified by the native loader and file name as Natural Earth 1:110m land. The local file does not pin an upstream archive release. Its accepted bytes are preserved; an exact upstream archive reconstruction has not been performed. The same Natural Earth public-domain terms apply. Theme information: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/110m-physical-vectors/110m-land/.

Rendering code and visual identity

The site uses Three.js 0.180.0 and Astronomy Engine 2.1.19 under MIT. Their notices are in /THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt. Upstream licenses: Three.js and Astronomy Engine.

Bhugol palette, style and scientific contracts are adapted under the owner's explicit Web V1 request. Their native acceptance is not a general public-domain or open-source license. The accepted native files remain unchanged.

Lighting, motion and unavailable observations

The Web V1 astronomical model calculates geocentric apparent Sun and Moon vectors, lunar phase, illuminated fraction and apparent diameters with Astronomy Engine 2.1.19. One device-clock UTC instant drives the equatorial-of-date to Greenwich apparent sidereal Earth-fixed transform, sunlight, terminator and visible celestial positions. The model refreshes every 30 seconds and when the tab returns. Camera controls change the inspection viewpoint, not time or Earth orientation. This is not a precision eclipse, navigation or local topocentric sky tool: UT1 and polar-motion corrections, detailed refraction and local observer parallax are outside this display. A wrong device clock gives wrong positions.

The Web V1 celestial renderer adapts accepted Native visual principles with a textured self-luminous solar sphere, a spherical sunlit Moon, bounded daylight display gain and a thin solar/view-angle atmosphere. Solar granulation, lunar markings, stars and Milky Way structure are original deterministic browser illustrations, not copied Native textures or observed imagery. The lunar near side is approximately locked to Earth; physical libration is not rendered. The Milky Way follows a fixed J2000 galactic-plane orientation, while its brightness and individual stars are illustrative. Sun/Moon positions, apparent sizes, phase and illumination use the same UTC model. The atmosphere is a lightweight approximation, not physical radiative transfer.

The current renderer uses the pale gold solar and off-white lunar material treatment observed in the owner-accepted Native app, with a narrower solar halo. The surfaces remain original procedural illustrations on 3D spheres. Native's Earth-view Moon is a phase-painted cue and its Solar System Sun is a scale diagram; neither establishes an accepted detailed lunar atlas or permission to enlarge Web's astronomical disks. The Web V1 view keeps UTC directions, phase, illumination and apparent angular sizes.

The faint cloud pattern is procedural artwork, not a current observation. No current storm or lightning activity, seismic events, aircraft positions or live satellite positions are fabricated. Unknown is not zero; replay is not live; illustrative presentation is not an observation.

Deferred assets and features

Native static NASA cloud and night-light derivatives are excluded from Web V1: source-specific public reuse verification is incomplete, even though generic NASA media guidance was reviewed. No NASA image asset is used in Web V1. Generic guidance: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/.

Seismic, Storm, Lightning, Cosmic Explorer, Earth Time, Evolution, Oil, India-specific detailed layers, Rail and landmarks are outside this initial browser scope. Their data and rights are not implicitly cleared by this document. LAND-01 and DIST-01 remain deferred by owner decision; R-001 remains paused. A future feature requires its own scope, source, rights, performance and accessibility assessment.

No Android or other public app release is claimed. The Bhugol native app is not publicly downloadable here; its availability is shown as Coming Soon.

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