FUN WITH ATTRIB FROM MAP

This is really really easy and even a little bit of VEX is involved.

Then you can create an image trace with something like Inkscape ...

I also remember Andrew Price/Blenderguru doing a nice tut on creating the "Blue Marble" with Blender & Cycles,if you want to challenge yourself with learning a little bit of Blender too or try and recreate it with Houdini :))

If you have any questions, just leave a comment ...
Oh, and there is one thing I missed to mention in the vid:
When using the ch() function - just click the little slider icon on the right hand side of your VEX code window to acutally create the slider.

Thnx for your interest + See You Next Mission!