Chapter 3. Choosing different map views for Marble

Marble comes with 15 different views: Atlas, OpenStreetMap, Satellite View, Earth at Night, Behaim Globe 1492, Sentinel2 Satellite Map, Historical Map 1689, Political Map, Plain Map, Precipitation (December), Precipitation (July), Temperature (December), Temperature (July) Vector OSM and Moon. You can choose among these by pressing the Map View tab on the top of Marble's toolbox:

Marble Map Views
  • Atlas: A classic topographic map. It uses vector lines ( "MicroWorldDataBase II" ) to mark coastlines, country borders etc. and bitmap graphics ( "SRTM30" ) to create the height relief.

  • OpenStreetMap: A global roadmap created by the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project. OSM is an open community which creates free editable maps. The OSM data was rendered using Mapnik.

  • Satellite View: Earth as seen from Space. The map is based on NASA's beautiful Blue Marble Next Generation pictures. Credits: NASA’s Earth Observatory

  • Earth at Night: This image of Earth’s city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS).

  • Behaim Globe 1492: Produced by Martin Behaim from 1490–1492, it is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe.

  • Sentinel2 Satellite Map: Based on the Sentinel data, see more information here.

  • Historical Map 1689: A historical world map from the year 1689 created by G. van Schagen in Amsterdam.

  • Political Map: A simple map with the current frontiers of countries.

  • Plain Map: A plain map. It uses vector lines to mark coastlines and country borders etc.

  • Precipitation (December): A map which shows the average precipitation in December.

  • Precipitation (July): A map which shows the average precipitation (rain, snow, hail, etc.) in July.

  • Temperature (December): A map which shows the average temperature in December.

  • Temperature (July): A map which shows the average temperature in July.

  • Vector OSM: Vector map from the OpenStreetMap project.

  • Moon: A map of the moon. The map is based on data from the Clementine Moon mission (UVVIS Basemap Mosaic). Credits: NASA/SDIO, Courtesy USGS Astrogeology Research Program.