World map WIP

[mearrin69]

Thanks for the info. That looks totally horrid on a globe...guess I misjudged the amount of distortion that would occur.

As to the 2:1 ratio, however, I used (or tried to anyway) the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection (link). This is just the western hemisphere. I think the measurements of the whole map are 8"x22.something. I reckon from your comments that this isn't standard? I'm a 3D graphics kind of guy and it worked just like a standard cylindrical projection in 3D so it made sense to me. Is the 2:1 thing the most-often used in cartography? What's the projection called? I'd like to look it up.

Heh. Guess you can tell I'm a total newbie.

Thanks for the help!
M

[Gidde]

The 2:1 ratio is called equirectangular, since the distance between latitude lines and the distance between longitude lines are equal. (360 degrees of longitude, 180 degrees of latitude = 2:1). It's a special case of a simple cylindrical projection.

[selden]

It's also called "cylindrical equidistant" and "Plate Carré" (spelled variously Caree, Carre & Carree)

[selden]

One solution would be to increase the dimensions to something like 2800x1400, adding arctic and antacrtic snowcap regions of 112 pixels each, plus an eastern "hemisphere" extension of 950 pixels, something like the map below. But with some interesting land masses, of course!

The antarctic peninsulas would still be squashed in longitude, but not nearly as badly.

p.s. looking more closely at your map, I noticed that you've drawn the lines of latitude more closely together as you approach the poles. I assumed an equidistant projection, with longitude and latitude lines separated by the same number of degrees forming squares on the map.

[selden]

Here's my reprojection of Lambert equalarea into Plate Carré. That's the format used by Celestia, the program I used to project the map onto a sphere. I used MMPS to do the reprojection.

I'm assuming that what you've drawn is intended to be exactly one hemisphere. Unfortunately, an equalarea projection has even more severe longitudinal distortions near the poles than Plate Carré does, since its lines of constant latitude are squashed together at the same time that longitude is expanded.

p.s.
To put it another way, if you reconsider the original map either to be of more than half of the world, or to be of a smaller, near-equatorial region, the design looks quite good. I hope these suggestions don't do too much damage to your intended design of the eastern hemisphere.

[RobA]

I used MMPS to do the reprojection.

Can someone compile a binary for windows (or dos, more correctly)?



-Rob A>

[selden]

I can provide one for use with Cygwin, if that helps.
I think it would only need the base install, not any of the software development libraries.

p.s. here's a link to a zip file conatining the sourcecode and binaries (along with some many-times-rewritten shell scripts that I used.)

http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/cel...mps-0-1-35.zip (2.2MB)

[mearrin69]

Wow. I appreciate the analysis, Selden. If I had anything but "grey rep" I'd pass some your way!

Guess I need to go read up on map projections again. I was really liking the shape of the continent but I think I'll have to rework it for a more "equal" projection. Probably won't get to work on this much this week but hopefully I'll show something by next weekend.

Until then, here's an experiment I played with a bit...trying to achieve a hand-drawn look. Haven't quite figured out what to do about the details like mountains and forests...I think the Tolkien style is probably best. Any suggestions there appreciated.
M

[Imahilus]

I kind of like the awkward 'spikes' towards the pole.
You could easily justify it by marking the pole as the site of some apocalyptic event.
It has a distinct mark, but you just can't quite put your finger on what caused it, perfect.. right? =)

[Steel General]

You're latest 'experiment' looks pretty cool so far. Got a nice 'grungy' feel without going to grungy (if that makes sense ).