DNA sequence, gene and genome databases are rapidly expanding due to advances in genomics instrumentation, technology and methodology. These advances impact many areas of research. For example, comparative virology is enhanced by data mining these expanding databases. Due to the immense amount of data, more and better computational tools and methods are needed to mine this data. GeneOrder2.0 and CoreGenes are two recently developed Java-based interactive computational tools that have applications in ''whole genome'' analyses. They have been used to examine several chordopoxvirus genomes for their gene content and context. Results include identifying gene order in pairs of chordopoxviruses, e.g., genome co-linearity, and generating a matrix of orthologous genes amongst representative genomes. These tools give a highly effective visualization of these and other related and semi-related genomes.