It is of course possible to do this in inkscape. I think what earlyblake means is there's no easy, automated way to render "spherical topography" on a group of objects in inkscape. I have a few ideas using the clone->trace background tool and the perspective effect that might work. Let me try them out and see what I come up with.
edited to add my first round of experiments.
http://files.myopera.com/llogg/files/spherical%20topography.pngThe top row is the underlying idea. Circle with radial gradient, tile clone using trace underlying image option and using opacity and size options. Then apply perspective effect.
Below that is the attempt to get something similar to item one on your example. Same thing as above, then use a triangle path, again tile clones to get circle of triangles evenly spaced, then combine triangle paths, center on "dot" path and do difference. Then apply perspective. Might get a better result to do the triangle path cutting before the half-tone-esque tracing. Not perfect because you don't get that curve you're looking for, but it's almost there.
Might be better to try and use pattern along path or other live path effects that I'm less familiar with.