Marble

Maps serve many purposes and thanks to the Internet and modern day computers, you can find and download any type of map, without any difficulties. Marble provides a complete set of tools for anything that involves a map. You can use it for navigation, education, for scientific purposes or use it to explore the world and indulge your personal curiosity.

The installed application takes up 62.5 MB of disk space, which is not a problem even for older computers. You just need to specify a destination path and click a button to install Marble. The software is free and it is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, as well as certain Nokia smart phones. Furthermore, Android and tablet versions are under development.

The user interface presents a 3D globe. You can rotate the globe in any direction and zoom in or out. A tabbed panel, located on the left side of the window, provides you with navigation options, as well as the means to view, enable and disable specific legend elements, switch between various map types, calculate routes and more. You can also switch from the 3D globe to a flat map.

One of the best parts about Marble is the fact that it comes with a large number of map types. By default, the software will show you an atlas map, but you can select other map types, on the left side of the interface, such as temperature or precipitation maps, road maps, historical maps and others. Furthermore, you can load other celestial bodies, like the moon or certain planes and download additional maps from the developer's web site or create your own maps.

You can right click anywhere on the map and select various options, to copy coordinates to the clipboard, retrieve address details, measure the distance between two points or place navigational waypoints. If you place more than one waypoint on the map, the software will highlight the shortest route automatically and you can export it as a GPX file. On certain map types, you may click mostly any label, to retrieve information about places, from Wikipedia. You can activate other online services as well, located in the View menu, if you want to view earthquakes, photos, postal codes, weather information or satellites. Additionally, you can access a series of time controls and make the loaded planet move in real time, slower or faster.