🔭 Earth

Your life, mapped. Pinpoint, scrapbook, and explore your localized media and memories across an interactive 3D globe.

Overview

Companion Earth is a locally-hosted, interactive 3D globe interface for your personal memories and media. It renders an offline-capable globe (using Cesium with locally cached tiles) and pins your photos, notes, conversations, location history, and Spatial Scan models to their real-world geographic coordinates — all sourced from your Digital Memory Server.

Think of it as a personal Google Earth that knows everything about your life and runs entirely on your hardware.

Key Features

Offline globe rendering — cached map tiles run without internet (configurable tile zoom levels and regions)
Memory pins — photos, notes, conversations, and events from Digital Memory are pinned to their GPS coordinates
Location history — import Google Timeline, iOS Significant Locations, or manual check-ins for a continuous travel trail
Media scrapbook — click any pin to open a rich card with associated photos, notes, and links to related memories
Spatial Scan overlays — Spatial Scan captures appear as 3D overlays on the globe at their capture location
Time scrubber — sweep through time to see where you were and what you captured on any date
Cluster view — pins cluster intelligently at lower zoom levels; expand to explore individual memories
Export — generate sharable (local-only) map pages for a trip or event

Use Cases

Explore your travel history as a 3D globe with all associated photos and notes
“Show me everything I captured in Tokyo” — filter Digital Memory by location
Build a visual autobiography mapped to geography
Share a curated map of a trip or event with family on your local network
See Spatial Scan captures overlaid on the real locations they represent

Architecture


Companion Earth (WebGL / CesiumJS)
├── 3D Globe Renderer (CesiumJS)
├── Offline tile cache (local tile server)
├── Memory pin layer ──▶ Digital Memory API
├── Time scrubber ──▶ Memory date filter
└── 3D overlay layer ──▶ Spatial Scan models

Location Data Sources

Source	How to use
Google Timeline	Export from Google Maps → Takeout, import via Import Tools
iOS Significant Locations	Export via scripts, import via Import Tools
App photo EXIF	Automatically extracted from photos in Digital Memory
Manual pins	Add via Earth’s pin management interface
Omi / wearable GPS	Streamed automatically if GPS module present

Setup

Install from Hub

Search for Earth in the Hub app store and install.

Cache offline tiles

Open http://earth.ci.localhost → Settings → Offline Maps → Download Region. Select your desired countries/regions and zoom levels. This uses local storage — budget ~2 GB per zoom-level increment for a country.

Connect Digital Memory

In Settings → Data Sources, verify the Digital Memory endpoint is connected and syncing.

Import location history

If you have a Google Timeline or iOS export, import it via Import Tools with the Location History source type. After import, Earth will populate your trail automatically.

Usage

Exploring the Globe

Navigate with standard 3D map controls: click-drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, right-click-drag to tilt. Double-click any location to zoom in.

Searching

Type a place name, date, or memory keyword in the search bar. Earth zooms to the relevant location and highlights matching pins.

The Time Scrubber

Drag the time slider at the bottom to sweep through your history. Your location trail animates through time and the pin layer updates to show only memories from the selected period.

Viewing a Memory

Click any pin to open its memory card. Photos display in a gallery. Notes and transcripts are shown as formatted text. Click Open in Digital Memory to view the full record.

Adding a Manual Pin

Right-click anywhere on the globe → Add Pin → fill in the memory details. The pin is saved to Digital Memory with the selected coordinates.

Troubleshooting

Globe renders blank / no tiles Offline tile cache may not be downloaded yet. Open Settings → Offline Maps and check download status. Earth requires at least the base globe (zoom level 0–8) to render.

No memory pins visible Ensure Digital Memory has data with GPS coordinates. Photos without EXIF location and memories without associated coordinates will not appear. Check Settings → Data Sources → Last Sync.

Location trail appears incomplete Not all devices embed GPS in photos or logs. Import your Google Timeline or iOS location history for the richest trail.

Pins in wrong location Some imported GPS data has low accuracy. Edit a pin’s location by right-clicking it → Edit Location and dragging to the correct position.