Chendu demonstrates a novel algorithm for compressing spherical surface data. In the current version, the user can explore elevation data of the Lunar surface.
Try finding your favourite crater and hovering around it! The endeavour has been made even more interesting by a lack of documentation :)
At high zoom levels, you will see "ringing" artefacts around craters. This is a limitation of the spherical harmonic data that was used for this demo. Later versions will feature higher resolution data, and more data-sets, such as the elevation data for Mars. And oh, documentation!
Chendu should work on all major platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac) and then some.
It needs Java 8 to be installed.
See the README file inside the zip; it has a mini-manual (surprise!).