Mapping Tekumel?

[altfritz]

Has anyone tried any Tekumel related maps? I've been attempting to digitize one of the existing world maps by importing it into CAD, scaling it in meters and then tracing the coastlines, etc. I've also started to redraw the rivers in a more realistic manner and adding smaller tributaries, lakes and that sort of thing. I've been working in AutoCAD but not I am thinking of exporting into CC3 to pretty up the drawing. I would especially like to map the thing onto a sphere so the true locations of things can be determined. Does anyone have any advice on how to do this? Tekumel is - IIRC - a least 20% larger than Earth.

Howard

[markem]

If I remember correctly - the Tekumel maps are all rectangular and suffer from cylinder world syndrome. You would have to distort them. A long, long, time ago....I remember there used to be a free program on the net that would do the distortion for you. But I don't remember where it was and it was not a downloadable program. But if I remember what the guy talked about rightly - you have to draw your latitudinal lines and then bend them out from each other slightly at the equator and you have to scrunch them at the poles. So at the poles you lose areas and at the equator you gain additional territory.

That said, I would think downloading one of these types of maps for the earth and placing it behind the Tekumel map and then making the Tekumel map transparent (probably around 75%) would make it so you could adjust the Tekumel map so it conforms to how the other map works. When you are through just delete the earth map and you would then have your bowed Tekumel map. The real problem here is deciding what not to show in the far north or far south.

[altfritz]

The Tekumel maps just show a portion of a part of the Northern Hemisphere. They are typically hex maps with each hex equal to 133km (or 100 Tsolyani tsan). IIRC the North Pole is stated to be about 60-70 hexes off the top of the map. I can't recall if the Equator is actually shown or if that is also off map to the South. AFAIK no lines of latitude or longitude have ever been defined but as the fluff is that the planet has been terraformed to have a rotation and orbit similar to Earth, despite being somewhat larger, I am thinking I can place the tropics of cancer/capricorn in about the same relative positions. I can arbitrarily assign a Prime Meridian to work out the lines of Longitude.

I understand how there will be distortion in the land masses as one gets closer to the poles but I actually don't think that will be too much of a problem as most of the mapped area is fairly close to the Equator and - being larger than Earth - that means you have to go farther North to actually reach the polar regions where the distortion would become more extreme. And, as I said, the top of the map is a good 6000-7000km South of the North Pole. (If I am remembering the figures correctly...) ;-)

[markem]

When I worked at NASA they said that the earth actually looks more like an egg than a sphere. (Down Chthulu followers! It isn't REALLY an egg.) Anyway, I was also told that there is a slight deformity in the Pacific where the metallic center of the earth is closest to the surface. This is the same area where no communications can be had with the space shuttle or space station. Do you think that Tekumel would be similar?

[altfritz]

I think the term is "obloid sphere". Correction: "oblate spheroid" (according to Google) :-)

I hadn't heard about the communication difficulties. I wonder if that means no GPS or other communications (ie radio) either....did that have an effect on WW2, I wonder?

re. Tekumel. I expect so, though it might be just easier to assume a perfect sphere. :-)

[markem]

None. Electronic transmissions just blank out (high static). If you watch the movie "Gravity" they pass through this area in the movie and all communication cuts out. It isn't highly emphasized and since I went to see the movie with a friend from NASA - we both knew what was going on. When my wife saw the movie she thought that maybe their equipment had stopped working for unknown reasons.

On Topic: If you go to the Tekumel website they mentioned there that they are trying to produce an entire world map (and maybe make a new game too). :-)

[johnvanvliet]

converting a image that maps to a Cylinder to one that maps to a sphere
is rather EASY

The problem lies in having the results LOOK GOOD
there are MANY free tools

the easiest but not 100% scientifically accurate ( but looks good) is to use "The Gimp "
it has a built in plugin to convert a image into "polar stereographic"
BUT
the pole will not look good

this can be fixed with the "resynthesizer"
http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/resynthesizer
( i know for a FACT it builds on windows using MinGW )
it is a "inpainting" tool

then undo the "to polar" mapping
do this for both north and south
and you have a image that will map to a sphere

I would especially like to map the thing onto a sphere so the true locations of things can be determined.

is the "map" a full planet
-- 90 North
-180 to 0 to +180
-- 90south
or just a area like say "south America "

if the latter
MMPS "Matthew's Map Projection Software"
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~arcus/mmps/
it is TERMINAL based -- NO GUI
for windows users that is "cmd.exe"
and it should build on windows using the free terminal only version of the "visual studio" compiler from MS and i KNOW it builds on windows using Mingw and gcc

Electronic transmissions just blank out (high static).

that hole is an oddity

[markem]

Yes it is - but if you go in to the mission control room (new one - not the old one - that's just for visitors now) you will see one of those maps that has the whole world as a rectangular display. On the display there is a large, slightly darker, circle in the Pacific Ocean which delineates where they lose communications. It takes about thirty minutes for the Space Station to move through the area and not all passes go through it (everything in orbit goes on these sine wave patterns). Anyway, I can't find any maps that show it. It's just one of those things you know about if you work with Mission Control I guess.

To go completely off topic here: Did you hear the one about the Russian astronaut who was putting up shelves in the space station and drilled into outer space? True story. He slammed a clipboard up against the bulk head to keep the air from escaping. Russia flew a MIG over to the US which landed in Florida at one of the smaller fields around NASA. Someone was waiting for them when they landed and a device was given to the man in the jeep who raced over to where the Space Shuttle was going to launch. The device was taken up to the astronauts and one of the astronauts held onto the device as they took off. The device was delivered, the hole sealed. The device? A standard caulk gun with a caulking cannister in it. Yes. You too can fix the international space station with caulk. Must have been decent stuff because I never heard of them doing any other repairs to the problem. :-)