Description:
The Eartha Global Explorer DVD is a terrific way to literally see the entire world, but only if your computer hardware is up to task. Contained on this single DVD is a 3-D representation of earth that can be rotated, zoomed in on, and viewed from any angle. Major cities, roads, and points of interest are also depicted, and somehow there was still enough room left on the DVD to include audio descriptions of most place names and attractions on the maps. Best of all, it's dirt cheap. DeLorme touts the software's ability to plot a course anywhere on earth, but we imagine few people would trust a product like this with their global vacation plans. The real draw of the software is its detailed 3-D view of the world, based on satellite imagery. It's easy to see the topographical features of, say, Costa Rica from a straight top-down view, but Eartha Global Explorer let us drop our altitude, change the viewing angle, and see the 3-D terrain from perspectives that we'd never be able to view from the real world. The interface makes it easy to zip over the terrain and whirl around to change your viewpoint, but smooth performance requires a fast computer processor and a beefy video accelerator card. The program allows for software rendering, where your computer's CPU shoulders most of the graphics-crunching load, but it is worthless. Without an appropriate DirectX-compatible video accelerator, the maps look bad and are impossible to accurately rotate; the graphics simply can't keep up with your inputs. If you have a cutting-edge PC, however, Eartha Global Explorer is an educational toy that anyone interested in geography will enjoy. --T. Byrl Baker
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