Earth 3D Lite

I dream of going into orbit... this is probably the closest I'll actually get! This is a really well implemented application. It provides a view of earth smoothly passing by 'below' the viewport of your Mac's display. I can't stop gazing at it. A couple of little issues... The earth texture is fairly low resolution, so coastlines, etc. are a bit blurry. (I'd happily pay for a version with higher resolution textures). The textures are high-mapped (so that mountains, etc. are shown in '3D') but the heights are over-emphasised. The result is the sight of comically huge, pointy mountains passing by. I think this is done to compensate for the low resolution high map. (Once again, for a more detailed height map, and more realistic display of those heights, I'd happily pay) The paid version offers lots of extra details (famous sights, labels, etc.) but I think the lack of information is what makes this free version all the more charming - just the view of our blue/green planet. Thanks to the dev. for this.

I dream of going into orbit... this is probably the closest I'll actually get! This is a really well implemented application. It provides a view of earth smoothly passing by 'below' the viewport of your Mac's display. I can't stop gazing at it. A couple of little issues... The earth texture is fairly low resolution, so coastlines, etc. are a bit blurry. (I'd happily pay for a version with higher resolution textures). The textures are high-mapped (so that mountains, etc. are shown in '3D') but the heights are over-emphasised. The result is the sight of comically huge, pointy mountains passing by. I think this is done to compensate for the low resolution high map. (Once again, for a more detailed height map, and more realistic display of those heights, I'd happily pay) The paid version offers lots of extra details (famous sights, labels, etc.) but I think the lack of information is what makes this free version all the more charming - just the view of our blue/green planet. Thanks to the dev. for this.