Tom Rowley Van Sant (February 26, 1931 – March 6, 2023) was an American sculptor, painter and conceptual artist.
Van Sant's professional skills and intellectual interests range to architectural design, city planning, art education and advanced technical invention.
The project required ten months of software development and both interactive and non-interactive methods of creating the mosaics using a Stardent GS1000 Graphics Supercomputer – then amongst the most powerful machines of its type.
Al Gore cited Mr. Van Sant for his beautiful and useful 3D image of the Earth in the film An Inconvenient Truth.
In the summer of 2007 he participated in the Chicago public art exhibition "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet."