feat(core): GlobeController with inertia, tilt & pan

[felixpalmer]

Background

Alternative implementation to #10249

The current GlobeController has several limitations:

• No support for bearing or pitch
• The transitions are also not implemented in a way that allows use of inertia in the controller
• Polar axis is always forced to be up

Approach

This PR adds a set of utilities that perform full 3D spherical calculations, both when processing input and animating transitions by simulating a rigid sphere

Back compatibility

When the bearing is 0, the old behavior is retained, with the polar axis kept pointing up. Inertia is enabled in this mode to give a more responsive feel though

Screen.Recording.2026-05-13.at.14.59.05.mov

New behavior

When the bearing is changed, the polar lock is removed and the globe can move freely in all directions

Screen.Recording.2026-05-13.at.15.02.41.mov

Notice how the bearing changes during the transition in order the keep the orientation valid

Touches outside globe

The input handling is unchanged, in that pointer events outside the globe are treated the same as inside. No attempt is made to "grab" an exact point on the sphere and anchor it as it leads to strange behavior at the edge of the sphere

Changes

• Add globe-utils.ts with Globe spherical math helper and GlobeInertiaInterpolator for transitions
• Update GlobeController to defer to Globe when updating viewport
• Track last positions of globe to simulate physics for inertia parameter
• doc updates

[charlieforward9]

Polished!

It did occur to me recently, that we should consider combining the logic in your new TerrainController into the GlobeController by default as well to avoid passing this responsibility to the user.

Agree?

[felixpalmer]

should consider combining the logic in your new TerrainController into the GlobeController

Indeed, perhaps we could switch to TerrainController rather than MapController at high zooms. I say we land this PR first though

[coveralls]

coverage: 83.519% (-0.3%) from 83.791% — felix/globe-inertia-bearing into master

[chrisgervang]

Great work you guys, this feels intuitive!