My favorite topic in computer graphics is universe/space/planet visualization. When the time to pick a topic for my Master’s dissertation came I already knew what I was going to do! 😛 Although the dissertation was about my favorite topic, because of some unfortunate events, I didn’t spend a lot of time on it. As a result my implementation was only about vertex data with no texturing at all. The technique I used was a Chunked LOD implementation for spherical grids. The application consists of two executables: Chucky and Worldy. Chunky is used for preprocessing the original data and creating a custom file format. Worldy is the actual visualization application. The download includes a preprocessed earth dataset from NASA Blue Marble Next Generation.
You can also have a look at my dissertation here:Real-Time Planet Rendering Thesis

Download(win32)