Originally Posted by
Gold
1. World map spin around the equator view (cannot be printed because it is moving, but can be shown on webpages): Make several orthographic projection maps from every perspective (say every 10 degrees longitude, keeping the same latitude constant, would make 36 orthographic maps). Now assemble these orthographic maps in sequence (let's say in Photoshop) and save as Animated GIF. It's at least a fun toy version of your world that looks almost 3D, and it maybe an educational-informative view. In conclusion I like the Orthographic map projection because it looks like seeing the world from space, however, one lone Orthographic projection map is not a "world map" because it cannot show the entire surface of the sphere from this projection perspective. If you put maybe 4 orthographic hemisphere maps on a paper map, you would start to get a 'world map'. Best used for the spinning GIF, I think.
2. World map that you can spin, roll, tilt, rotate, by hand at will: Google Earth (KMZ). Very fun. To import map to the free program Google Earth, you have to make the map a KMZ file, which contains an image file that happens to be equirectangular sphere-map. (Also if you want to share this type of map, to show others, you would have to give them the KMZ file with its enclosed image file -- this option is for home learning about your world, not really good for printing, and not great for sharing). The program Fractal Terrains exports a KMZ file, this is what I used to do it sof ar. Without FT3, I have not learned how to make a KMZ yet. I'm not sure if you can do it with a plain equirectangular map from photoshop that doesn't have geographic information embedded. It seems like maybe you could since the only geographic info you really need is that the map goes from 180 degrees to -180 degrees, however I'm not sure how you write this into a Google Earth KMZ. Might be something to look up. Google Earth gives you lots of fun features like seeing an "atmosphere" effect, day light and the shadow of night coming around as you timeline the hours of a day, and seeing the world in an obtuse angle like you're a satellite orbiting over the planet.
For a regional map of a continent or a state (zoomed in) in the northern latitudes -- I got a tip earlier from Hai-Etlik on using LCC (Lambert Conformal Conic), and I'm finding it works nicely with the right settings. BookOwl, I don't know if you are doing zoom maps of different regions or just focusing on the whole globe for now. Hope these thoughts help.