PowerGlobe for Illustrator: create your free 3D globe in just 5 minutes

Today I am talking about a new free product I am now using all the time when I quickly need a custom edited globe for one of my designs.

I don’t know about you, but in the past, when I wanted to use a globe in a project, I had my fair share of difficulties:

• searching all over the place for the right globe clip art
• the globe was not centered entirely to the area I was looking for
• It took time to make the globe look the way I wanted

Not anymore with this PowerGlobe for Illustrator.

I will show you step-by-step all the things you need to know and even share the PowerGlobe I have created myself and that I use in my day-to-day work. It's really easy.

How the PowerGlobe for Illustrator helped me to level up my work

This globe can be used for any type of artwork, whether it would be designing a poster, brochure, invitation, you name it. The globe is completely vectorized, meaning, you won’t lose any quality when you need to show it big. You will end up easily with a globe that is centered to the exact area you want and that you can edit any way you want by using the tools in Adobe Illustrator and by accessing all the available layers, like countries, sea, coastline and so on.

Some examples of the PowerGlobe in action:

This is an illustration I made for the ‘Atlas Espace et Société 2015’ from Erasme, a french speaking publisher. The PowerGlobe does it work even for print design!

This is the featured map on a Wikipedia article about the Inca Road System. I have drawn this map using our map style Summit. With the PowerGlobe it was easy to locate the area of the map on a globe. I have used the same map style Summit for the globe, so the globe is blending into the main map pretty nice.

Action Against Hunger, an international humanitarian organization, asked me to make a map about their presence in South Sudan. I added a location map highlighting the country of South-Sudan on a globe. I tweaked the style Defined so it fits right into the main map.  The PowerGlobe made me do that in a matter of minutes.

Once again, the PowerGlobe is suitable for every type of artwork, not only maps. It’s a great tool for graphic design in general.

This is what you get:

You will get a high-quality 3D vector globe or sphere that gives you the opportunity to edit the content easily and that you can rotate to your area of interest with one click of a button.

I have included three map styles in the PowerGlobe to have a solid starting point for your new project. Each map style includes layers with named objects for easy editing and selecting.

5 Steps to turn the PowerGlobe for Illustrator into your own globe

I will give you a step-by-step explanation for working with the PowerGlobe for Illustrator. When you get the hang of it, it does not need to take more than a few minutes to create your own custom base globe, centered on the area of your interest.

 1  Prepare the PowerGlobe file

Due to the nature of how things work in the PowerGlobe, it is best practice to maintain a master copy of the file. So start your work with a fresh copy of the original Illustrator file.

Open up this newly created copy and make sure all layers are locked. As you are working with the file, you see that you can easily select the wrong objects as you don’t pay attention to the currently active layer. Therefore, just lock all layers. We will unlock the layers one by one as we are working on the file.

 2  Choose your globe style in the Symbols palette

First make up your mind about how the globe should look like. You can alter the looks of globe yourself (more on that later), but I have prepared three map styles you can use right away. To choose your style, you need to open up the Symbols palette.

The Symbols palette contains four symbols:

The default symbol that is the one being used for your actual globe:

• PowerGlobe

Three symbols with map styles you can use:

• World vector Summit
• World vector Defined
• World vector Sci-Fi

Changing the default map style of the globe is done by dragging and dropping the symbol of your preferred map style over the default one named ‘PowerGlobe’ by pressing and holding the ALT-key.

You will notice that the style of the globe in the artboard changes.

Note the layer ‘Sci-Fi’ in the layers palette. Turn this layer to visible when using the map style ‘World Vector Sci-Fi’, as this layer contains a texture that is specifically made to complement the Sci-Fi look.

 3  Center the globe over your area of interest

So far, so good. Now it’s time to unlock your first layer ‘PowerGlobe’.

Select the PowerGlobe object by clicking on the left part of the globe with the selection tool or by selecting everything pressing CMD+A or CTRL+A. With everything selected, open up the Graphic Styles palette.

The Graphic Styles palette contains several styles to control the rotation of the globe and to choose different lights for illuminating the globe. The names of the graphic styles for choosing your lights all start with the word ‘Light’. All the other graphic styles are for controlling the rotation of the globe.

In this step we are going to focus on the graphic styles for controlling the rotation of the globe. I tried to give these graphic styles a clear name, so you would know instantly to what rotation the graphic style refers to. For instance, clicking on the ‘(continent) Asia’ graphic style, will rotate your globe to have the continent of Asia in the center of it. If you can’t find the center position you’re after in the Graphic Styles palette, you can easily rotate the globe yourself. More on this later on.

Be sure to lock back the layer ‘PowerGlobe’ when you’re done with centering the globe.

 4  Give the globe a more natural feel with Lights

To alter the feel of your globe with lights, unlock the layer ‘Lights’ and lock all the other layers. Select the Lights object by clicking on the left part of the globe with the selection tool or by selecting everything by pressing CMD+A or CTRL+A. With the object selected go back to the Graphic Styles palette and now click on one of the graphic styles with the word ‘Light’ in the name. Pick the one you like and lock back the layer.

You don’t need to have lights, if you prefer a flat look then you just set the Lights layer invisible.

 5  Tweak or remove the drop shadow on the back of the globe

Make sure only the layer ‘Shadow’ is unlocked. Select the actual shadow by clicking somewhere on the globe with the selection tool or by pressing CMD+A or CTRL+A to select everything on the layer. Next open up the Appearance palette.

In the appearance palette click on the line that says ‘Drop Shadow’. This will open up the ‘Drop Shadow’ dialog box.

Dial in your values for the drop shadow

From here you can dial in the values you like for your drop shadow. When checking the box next to ‘Preview’, you can see those changes applied in real time.

If you don’t need a drop shadow, just set the layer ‘Shadow’ invisible.

Don’t forget to lock the layer ‘Shadow’ as soon as you are done with it.

Edit the content and create your own map style by editing an existing map style

Once again, for your own safety, begin by making sure all layers are locked.

In the Symbols palette choose the map style you want to edit and make a copy of it by selecting the symbol and choosing ‘Duplicate Symbol’ from the Symbols palette options menu.

Now double-click on your duplicated symbol. This will open the symbol itself in editing mode. Each map style contains several layers, making it easy for you to target the objects you want.

You can view this symbol in editing mode as a regular Adobe Illustrator file, meaning you can edit objects on a certain layer, set layers invisible, create new layers and so on.

Let’s say you want to make a globe with the continent of Africa highlighted. You would select all countries belonging to Africa and give it the color you want. If you don’t want to see the country boundaries, just set the appropriate layer to invisible.
Double-click in the artboard somewhere when you’re done working on the symbol. You will be taken back to the main view of the globe.

Now it’s time to make your edited symbol the default one to be used by the globe. As mentioned earlier, just select the edited symbol in the Symbols palette and drag and drop the symbol onto the symbol ‘PowerGlobe’ by pressing and holding the ALT-key. Notice the globe in the artboard will now show your custom edited map style.

Are you asking yourself why not make the edits to the PowerGlobe symbol directly? Don’t. You are going to get yourself into trouble at some time or another. Because dropping another map style symbol onto the PowerGlobe symbol, will erase the actual content of the PowerGlobe symbol entirely and does leading you to lose all edits made directly to the PowerGlobe symbol.

Center the globe manually

There may be a time when you don’t have enough with the standard centering options the PowerGlobe provides. No problem, you can do this manually, but be aware that it is a bit tricky to get the rotation just right.

Make sure only the layer ‘PowerGlobe’ is unlocked. Select the one object present on the PowerGlobe layer by clicking on the left part of the globe with the selection tool or by selecting everything pressing cmd+A or CTRL+A. Now open up the Appearance palette.

In the Appearance palette click on '3D Revolve (Mapped)'

In the Appearance palette click on the line ‘3D Revolve (Mapped)’. This will take you to the 3D Revolve Options dialog box.

In this dialog box turn on the preview mode by checking the ‘Preview’ box in the bottom left. Next change the ‘Surface’-field to ‘Wireframe’.

Dialing in the rotation values by hand is almost impossible to do. I have tried to come up with some sort of formula, so you could easily calculate the right values. But for the purpose of rotating a 3D globe, it was getting way too complicated. If someone can point me in the right direction, please do.

My alternative can be a little bit tricky, but overall it is fairly easy.

In the 3D Revolve Options dialog box, hover over the cube (located in the top left) and drag it into your desired direction.

Notice that you see that while you drag the cube in the 3D Revolve Options dialog box, the wireframe in your artboard changes. The key is to make sure the imaginary line between the poles (north and south of the globe) are vertically aligned to one another. Otherwise you could end up with a globe that looks like it’s lying on it’s back or something. When done, be sure to turn the ‘Surface’-field back from ‘Wireframe’ to ‘No Shading’.

Use the finished globe in your project

Well, that’s easy, just unlock the appropriate layers, select everything you need and copy/paste it into your other document. You could also export the globe to a bitmap file like JPEG or TIF and use it wherever you want. Export to PNG if you want to maintain transparency around the globe.

Summary

I am sure the PowerGlobe will get you up and running with 3D vector globes rapidly. It is by far the fastest method to get results quickly and beautiful. And maybe it could be the only 3D globe you’ll ever need.

Imagine you had to create this kind of globes by hand, think about the time you would need to achieve similar results.

Now you get one globe, that comes with several map styles included, that is centered to the area of your interest with one click and that is totally customizable to fit your needs.

Maybe you come up with map styles of your own; I would like to hear about them! What else do you think about our PowerGlobe? Is there something I could have done better? Please share it, because I wanna know.

If you get some value from the PowerGlobe I would surely appreciate it that you like this post. Follow us on our social networks to stay on top of new products as they arrive.

Your support is what gets us going!

<a title="PowerGlobe for Illustrator" href="https://www.onestopmap.com/blog/powerglobe-for-illustrator/">PowerGlobe</a> by One Stop Map / CC BY