The Properties option displays the xearth settings page. See the following section for detailed information about the options on this page. The Orthographic projection renders the earth as it would be viewed from space, that is, a sphere. Only half the earth is visible at any one time when using this projection. Mercator The Mercator projection renders the earth as a flat map of the type often found on wall maps.
Distortion is apparent near the top and bottom of the map.
If the rotation is 0, and the projection is Orthographic, the image is rotated so that the plane of the earth's orbit is parallel to the top and bottom of the screen. Magnification Specify the magnification of the displayed image. When the orthographic projection is in use, the diameter of the rendered Earth image is this value times the shorter of the width and height of the image. For the mercator projection, the width of the rendered image is this value times the width of the image. The default magnification factor is 1.