Several years ago, I created a program that processed digital elevation model (DEM) data files into relief maps. This was before Google Earth & Maps, before Microsoft's Terra Server. There were no good online sources of detailed maps. Now that it's easy to get good maps, I haven't used my program in years. Until last week.
On my work computer, I have some DEM maps of the Nebraska counties as my wallpaper. Someone mentioned something about them, and was surprised to learn that they are actual maps of real places. They thought that it was all just abstract fractal-based art. That prompted me to generate some maps of the US with random colors. Each map is three degrees wide by two degrees high. There's a map for nearly every lat/lon in the lower 48. I excluded areas with less than 300 ft of relief (Florida does not make for pretty maps - it's too flat).
The collection is located here:
http://1drv.ms/1gZis5n. You should be able to download them into a directory and then set your windows wallpaper to show the images as a slideshow that changes every couple of minutes. If you're interested in knowing where a map comes from, the filenames contain the the coordinates of the corners.
Some maps may have white circles on them like this one (click on it to see it full-size); these represent impact craters. This one is upheaval dome in Southern Utah. The crater info was taken from the earth impact crater database several years ago. I've noticed that some appear to be in the wrong spot.
