G.Projector

Modern technology greatly enhanced every activity that used to take tremendous amounts of time otherwise. Exploration also benefits from an abundance of tools and gadgets that helped us map out the entire globe and even more. In this regard, G.Projector comes as a powerful tool with which you can import different map overlays for geographic analysis.

The application comes in a lightweight package that presents a few advantages. One of them is that it does not require an installation for proper functionality, which means you can also use it on the go. This is also enhanced by the fact that it's built in Java Runtime Environment, making it compatible with different devices.

With the main window up, you need to import in image map overlay in order to give Earth a texture. There are several presets in the source folder so you get an idea of what can be accomplished. However, a simple search over the web suffices to grab as many images as you need, because these can be under various formats like BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, KML, KMZ, as well as special overlay maps such as CNO and CNOB. Just make sure the images are not too large, otherwise they cannot be imported.

Before the image is applied over the representation of Earth, you need to specify coordinates, but leaving default values perfectly matches outlines, and these can also be adjusted later on. You can pick a second image layer to add, with several color and intensity values to adjust for easy identification and differentiation.

Adding an overlay does not just mean geological maps, but can also be lakes, rivers, or countries, which makes the second layer slot incredibly practical for different views or analysis tasks. Navigation is possible, either by writing down Lat and Lon values for the center view, or using the Shift + click combination on any area.

An impressive array of projections can be selected from a drop-down menu. These change the map type and representation, while they can be applied to any type of image. Sadly, there aren't any drawing tools or comments to place, but you can export high-quality image files for post-processing.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that G.Projector is a neat method of geographical analysis, because it gives you full control over image layers and objects displayed, with an abundance of different representations. It could have used at least basic drawing tools, but the set of features it comes with is enough to make it worth at least a try.