Very interesting project... I can imagine how time consuming it must have been. I have a question for Vladimirjp though. You said you can stick those tiles to the sphere using goal weights. Now I've never really used them before, but I thought goal weights were for attracting particles? So how can you do in this situation, where you're dealing with planes that need to be positioned at certain coordinates.

Oh and I nearly forgot: great work, Tiddles. Haven't seen the animation yet, but I can hardly wait.