Personally, I like to use Celestia to display global maps. For one thing, it's easy to add other features to the image without a lot of work. (And for other reasons, of course What, me biased? )

It does require the surface map to be in what's known as "simple cylindrical" or "Plate Carré"

Blindkingofbohemia,
Here's your map wrapped around a sphere. Atmosphere and clouds are added by Celestia.

Click image for larger version. 

Name:	bkob.jpg 
Views:	213 
Size:	43.7 KB 
ID:	37351