It may make navigating using plain old Google Maps seem a little boring.
A Washington designer has created an online map of the world designed to make Earth look like the Death Star from the hit film Star Wars.
Oceans appear as regions of deep space, and major cities have been renamed 'colonies'
'I’m a big fan of science fiction and computer games, so I couldn’t resist making a space themed map, said Eleanor Lutz
'I crammed it full of bright lights and chrome like some of my favorite post-apocalyptic worlds: the Matrix, Battlestar Galactica, and Starcraft.'
Lutz also tweaked the map to make it more sci-fi, by making markers larger and even renaming major cities like New York and London to 'colonies.'
'My favorite part about making this map was adding oversized markers for stores, parks, and other points of interest to simulate city lights.
'I lowered the contrast for landmasses and buildings to highlight the lights and the galaxy ‘ocean’.
'I took advantage of TileMill’s extensive text customization to change the names of all major cities into space colonies.
The Palms and the world resort in dubai are clearly visible in the 'Dubai Colony' area of the map.
'I also removed all of the water labels, since they distracted from the illusion of floating in space.'
The 'skin' Luitz created was based on a metal look, she said - and closely resembles the look of the Death Star from the hit Star wars films.
'To add depth to the map I made custom textures for all road, building, and ocean edges. I used Lost and Taken’s free textures to build pseudo-3D edges and steel plates.
'And just for fun, if you look for our Mapbox DC office you’ll find a spaceship.
The map also contains 'easter eggs' such as this shuttle, on the site of the designer's office in Washington
Part of Venice, showing a space-like 'emergency tape' edge the the city, and a Japanese river (right)
The map was created using an open source map called OpenStreetMap.
Mapping firm Mapbox allows people to create their own skins to include of corporate websites, for example.
Mapbox Studio is a toolkit that allows apps and websites to serve up their own custom-designed maps to users.
Companies like Square, Pinterest, Foursquare, and Evernote con provide custom-skinned maps, changing elements to better fit in with their brand.
Central Park looks particularly grey and brooding on the map
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