Best area vs shape compromise for mapamundi and Europe-Middle East maps?

[gsgeek]

Hi everyone!

I want to consult you about something. I'm developing strategy games whose main interface are maps -game A uses a mapamundi, game B uses a map of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East up to the Indus river.

In these maps, I want to reach a good compromise between shape and area, (i.e. make an area with X pixels ingame represent an area with Y square kilometers in the real world, and maintain this ratio as constant as possible through the entirety of the maps) and shape (i.e. avoid the projection make the shapes of the landmasses look distorted to the ai of the common player).

What projections would fit these criteria for game A? and for game B?

Also, another question. Once I have a projection, is there any available free software to transform an image from a projection into another? When I draw the different mapmodes I will most likely have to refer to online image that might be in different projections than the one I decide upon, so something like that might be helpful.

Thank you all very much in advance!

[johnvanvliet]

probably use Mercator

[Hai-Etlik]

If you want something easy, an azimuthal projection is an option. Stereographic is the conformal azimuthal projection (sort of shape preserving) Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area is the area preserving projection, and in between is Azimuthal Equidistant (preserves distances toward/away from the centre)

Where to centre it depends on what you mean by "North Africa" If it's everything north of the Gulf of Guinea then something like 28, 38 would work

oldworld.png

This is Azimuthal Equidistant, centred at 27.875, 37.875 or in Proj4

+proj=aeqd +lat_0=37.875 +lon_0=27.875 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +ellps=WGS84 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=m +no_defs

The red dot is the centre, the green dots are an approximation of Tissot's Indicatrix. Essentially they are a bunch of identical circles shown as distorted by the projection. (the real Indicatrix uses infinitesimal circles that are then scaled up to be finite)