Software for making a 3D globe out of an image

[kraken_42]

Create a flattened layer with your map. Then in the menu, chose 3D > New Mesh from Layer > Mesh Preset > Sphere.

Photoshop will create a 3D sphere and wrap your map around it. Note that you'll need to have an equirectangular projection in order for this to work, since the texture will be pinched at the poles.

I'm not terribly familiar with Photoshop's 3d features, so that's pretty much the extent of the guidance I can give you there, but I encourage you to play around with it and see what you can do.

edit: These instructions were formulated based on PS CS6. The 3d feature set was introduced in CS4, so I know you should have access to it, but the exact procedure may be different.

I do not have any sort of 3d menu; I believe that is a CS5 Extended only feature.

Or download G.Projector for free. It also requires an equirectangular input, but will give you output in many different projections, including on a globe.

Thank you; I downloaded it and it's a great tool for changing projection. Now I just need to figure out which one of the inputs is a globe ...

[acrosome]

Orthagonal/Orthographic, I think. (I'm at work- can't check.)

This is handy:

Wikipedia Article on Map Projections

It shows pictures, all on one page.

[Midgardsormr]

I do not have any sort of 3d menu; I believe that is a CS5 Extended only feature.

Oh right, I'd forgotten that there were two editions. I've always had one of the bundles, which always include the Extended version, so I never paid attention to the difference in feature lists.

If you'd like a proper 3d view, where you can look at the globe from different directions, probably the easiest and cheapest solution would be SketchUp. There's a little bit of a learning curve, of course, but making a sphere and mapping a texture to it is pretty basic and should be easy to figure out.

As far as I know, G.Projector will create static images with an orthographic projection, but it doesn't make any actual 3d geometry. Then again, I've only used it once and that wasn't what I was doing with it, so I may be mistaken.

[L33CHW33D]

I do not have any sort of 3d menu; I believe that is a CS5 Extended only feature.

The Photoshop 3D features works. I subscribe to photoshop, but the 3D menu is there and makes it into a 3D sphere which can be manipulated (with lighting too)