EarthDesk, Put the Wold Underneath Your Icons

There are certain programs out there, which serve no real purpose but without which our computing experience would be just a little bit more drab. We're not talking about widgets here, because most of them actually have a purpose beyond looking pretty, but rather the esthetic programs that we download and use simply because we can and they look good. EarthDesk is a perfect example of such a program.

What it does
In a nutshell, EarthDesk is a program that will generate a desktop picture of the earth, and will update that desktop image constantly in order to reflect the current conditions.

There are multiple ways of viewing the earth, and factors such as the distribution of light and current cloud patterns can be used in the rendering of the image to give a beautiful and time-accurate representation of the earth.

Dynamic Desktop
The desktop has always been the subject of preference and there are so many desktop pictures or wall papers, or whatever you want to call them out there that it would take many human lifetimes just to browse through them all. All of them, however, suffer from the same limitation, in that they are images, static pixels of which we eventually get bored.

EarthDesk is different in that the desktop image is being constantly updated and never looks the same twice. As time passes and the earth revolves, day and night move about the continents, clouds form and dissipate, swirl and twist as they are carried by the winds, all this information is used by the program to render the desktop image of the earth, giving you a constantly changing, never the same desktop.

See the world
EarthDesk can show the earth in many different ways, depending on four factors: projection, image type, shading and centering.

The projection affects how the earth is displayed. You can either go with a 'map like' projection such as equirectangular, Van Der Grinten, Mercator, and many others, or you can go with a globe projection that gives you the 'look from outer space' feel.

The image type is basically a toggle between a geographical map and a political one.

The shading affects how factors such as the moonlight are interpreted, and you can opt between real lighting, full moon in the night areas, no moon in the night areas and daylight only.

Centering affects where the focus is placed on the map; you can either go for some predefined values such as the map origin, the equatorial sunset, sunrise, moon set and moonrise, or choose a city such as the one you live in.

More than just a map
There are many discreet factors that serve to give EarthDesk the great look and feel it has, perhaps the biggest one is the city lights. Whenever night reaches a certain part of the globe, and darkness sets in, people will switch on the lights inside their houses and the lights inside on the streets and the cities will light up. This is reflected by the program and, at night, those areas will light up. Where there are large populated cities, there will be many bright lights, and where there are only small isolated villages, only the smallest, dimmest of lights will appear.

The city lights interact with the phase of the moon, and the program can download the information on current cloud patterns and include that in the rendering, giving everything a very acute 'real' feel.

Besides providing a beautiful image to look at, it also has a discreet practical function, allowing you to approximate what the current conditions are in any part of the world. It is by no means an accurate indicator of the conditions, but it's not exactly a chuck of information either, and you can gauge the condition in Peru without it being any less of a desktop picture.

The Good
A beautiful and ever changing 'desktop ornament.' It appeals to the mind the same way as staring into fire does, and for some reason you never really get bored of it.

The Bad
There is nothing bad about this program, it does what it says perfectly, and works on just about any computer. However, if there was one thing that could be in there and isn't, that would be the inclusion of current meteorological conditions, so you could actually see snow and things.

The Truth
It is a program that has no practical purpose, it just makes your desktop look good. There are some who swear by a plain black desktop, and others who swear by their collection of thousands of desktop pictures. But if you are looking to get the earth beneath your icons, this is the program for it.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge: