Maybe someone here can help me. I am trying to find some software that shows the surface of the Earth in 3D. I am especially interested in the mountain ranges and the hills. It would be very nice to be able to look at mountains from various angles, see what the topography looks like, and which sides of the mountain are steeper.

Surely there is a piece of software that does a pretty good job of this, these days? I don't mind if its Free or it costs Money ... it just has to work properly.

I've got Google Earth and I use it quite a lot. But when you are looking down (from the sky towards the Earth) on Google Earth, you can't really get a good idea about the topography. Maybe there's a better way to use Google Earth that I don't know about.

Any ideas out there?

thanks,
Pete