Lucy's Globe compared to a hardware globe

The first advantage of Lucy's Globe of course is that a software globe like it can not
fall down if ever you make a clumsy movement. But there are still many
advantages.

An advantage of a globe compared to an atlas is that you can turn it easily from one
position to another one. With a software globe like Lucy's Globe, this is even much
easier, as the force necessary to turn the globe corresponds only to the force
necessary to manipulate the computer mouse.

Whereas it is not possible to magnify with a hardware globe, with a software globe
it is of course possible to put a huge amount of details onto the globe and show
them by magnifying – as you perhaps have already seen with Google Earth -. But
with Lucy's Globe, the didactic aspects are more important. The objective is not to
put as many details as possible to be able to see even the least house in the least
village. But here the objective is to gain a feeling for the big picture which can
especially be conveyed by the puzzle games.

Other advantages of Lucy's Globe vs. a hardware globe:

The realistic and telescope views

With the telescope view, Lucy's Globe shows a whole hemisphere. With a
hardware globe this would only be possible if you moved away several kilometers
from your globe and looked to it through a telescope.

Principally, a realistic view is possible with a hardware globe but much easier to
realize with Lucy's Globe because you have not to compute around and you don't
need a fly's eyes. Let's suppose, you want to know how the Earth looks like from
the geostationary orbit. For this, in Lucy's Globe, you need only to set the distance
observer-Earth to 36000 km. With a hardware globe of 1.2m you had to move away
3.6m from the globe and with a globe which is easier to handle like one with a
diameter of 30cm, you had to stay at a distance of 90cm. To see how the Earth
looks from the ISS (International Space Station) is also interesting. With Lucy's
Globe the distance of 350km is easily set. With the oversized globe of 1.2m
diameter, you would have to get as close as 3.5cm with you eye. And with a more
more manageable globe of 30cm diameter, you would have to get closer than 1cm,
which of course is of no use, unless you are a fly. But with Lucy's Globe you can
easily realize that many details of the Earth are still visible from the ISS.
Luxembourg for example has still a length of 10cm on the screen.

(Remark: For the realistic view in Lucy's Globe you need a distance of 40cm from
the screen.)

Interactivity

With which hardware globe can you measure immediately the distance Paris-Berlin
or Berlin-Moscow? With which hardware globe can you get the exact basic data of
a state as surface, population or population density just with two mouse clicks?

Easy customization

Would anyone of us like to ruin his valuable hardware globe by writing on it? With
Lucy's Globe you can do this without remorse. You can even do complex changes,
as make making two states from one.