Results 1 to 30 of 52
Thread: Best map projection
-
2021-01-01, 04:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
Best map projection
What do you guys think is the best map projection?
Personally I think it has to be either Authagraph or Dymaxion"If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
Omegaupdate Forum
WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext
PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket
Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil
Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)
-
2021-01-01, 04:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
- Location
- UK
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
"Best" depends on what you want the map projection to do.
For all people complain about it, Mercator projections are very useful for navigation as they preserve direction and shape.
On the other hand, they are terrible for area, esecially when covering a large portion of the world.
Also, the map center is also very important, again based onw hat yo want to use the map for.
Hence I don't think there can be a "best" projection, there are just lots of different projections that are more or less useful depending on need.
-
2021-01-01, 06:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
There is one and only one correct and obvious answer.
Spoiler: The map centered on New Zealand, of course.Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
-
2021-01-01, 06:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2020
- Location
- rural Iowa
- Gender
-
2021-01-02, 12:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
Re: Best map projection
What would be the best for figuring out what a world actually looks like?
"If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
Omegaupdate Forum
WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext
PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket
Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil
Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)
-
2021-01-02, 12:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
Last edited by Peelee; 2021-01-02 at 12:39 AM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
-
2021-01-02, 01:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
Yeah, you hear a lot of complaints about Mercator making Europe seem bigger than Africa, but the people making those complaints don't seem to realise that's not what the purpose of the projection was or is--as you say, it's excellent for navigation because any straight line on a Mercator map will preserve the same bearing at each line of latitude or longitude it crosses.
-
2021-01-02, 01:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
-
2021-01-02, 02:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
Re: Best map projection
I think Factotum might mean that the geodesics are straight lines
"If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
Omegaupdate Forum
WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext
PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket
Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil
Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)
-
2021-01-02, 03:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Re: Best map projection
FeytouchedBanana eldritch disciple avatar by...me!
The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas
-
2021-01-02, 07:49 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
-
2021-01-02, 07:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
-
2021-01-02, 12:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Best map projection
These days, navigation is probably done via GPS and efficient usage of underwater currents and prevailing winds, all of which are thoroughly mapped. But when Mercator used intuitive logarithmic compression to create his projection about 50 years before logarithms were fully developed, navigation was done via compass, so having a map that preserved parallels and meridians (and their angle to any given compass direction) was far more important. You could look at the map, draw a line between two points, say "this line is north-by-north-west" and then set your compass to that... and it'll get you there. Not via the shortest route, but it'd be correct.
What I'm trying to say here is that the Mercator projection was an amazing development for its age, and that the reason we continue to use it to this day is mostly inertia, because we are used to how it looks, and all other projections (especially the ones that retain size but distort shape) look funny.
The "best" projection when it comes to minimal distortion is of course the orange slice one*, since it will best preserves all the salient characteristics such as shape and size... but you can't easily use it to travel, rendering practically useless as a map.
Grey Wolf
*Or any of the other variations on "cut a globe until it can lay flat", such as the Euler spiralLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2021-01-02 at 01:22 PM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
-
2021-01-02, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
Re: Best map projection
I still think Dymaxion* is one the best ones for being able to imagine how the sticking out bits fit together
*Projection onto an icosahedron (d20) which is then unfolded.
EDIT:
If one wanted to, one could turn it into a series of triominoes with numbered edges and then be able to freely reconfigure it so that there's an uninterrupted band of space between your starting point and destinationLast edited by Bohandas; 2021-01-02 at 04:38 PM.
"If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
Omegaupdate Forum
WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext
PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket
Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil
Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)
-
2021-01-02, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2019
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
Last edited by Tarmor; 2021-01-02 at 05:29 PM.
-
2021-01-03, 04:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2009
Re: Best map projection
The trouble - correction, one trouble - with that is, you always have to make a very arbitrary decision about which faces remain attached to each other, and which are detached. Look at the first example shown in Wikipedia and tell me, how far do you think it is from New Zealand to Antarctica? Or Chile?
True, every 2d projection raises a problem like that. But maps that are produced with the aim of being "accurate" or "fair" or whatever other indefinable term you like - have it worse than Mercator, because they set themselves up with a higher expectation. They actually claim to give a "better" idea of what the world is "really" like. And at that, they fail.
If you want to give the most accurate idea, use a globe. Seriously. Even a 2d model of a globe shown on a screen, provided the viewer can manipulate it freely, is better than any map projection."None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
-
2021-01-03, 04:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Cippa's River Meadow
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
-
2021-01-03, 06:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: Best map projection
I like the stereographic projection for its mathematical properties, in particular mapping circles to circles, which is good if you have a lot of craters. But the area distortion gets bad for more than a hemisphere at a time.
-
2021-01-03, 07:42 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2009
- Location
- Germany
Re: Best map projection
I mean, when do you ever actually need a navigational map of the whole world on a single sheet? Even ships going around half the globe have their possible routes severely limited by half a dozen bottlenecks around the world. You can always use three separate maps for the Atlantic, Indian, and West-Pacific Ocean.
And when travelling on land, the presence of roads limits your options so much that curvature of the Earth and distortions from map projections don't factor into your choice of route anyway.
I think world maps are really more artworks than actual navigational tools.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
-
2021-01-03, 08:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
World maps are for dividing the world into empires and area of influences.
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
-
2021-01-03, 10:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Best map projection
In an RPG? All the damn time.
And in RL, no-one travels world-spanning distances by land. We use air, which has no limitations on roads or other bottlenecks, and the only consideration is which route is shortest within a price range - sometimes involving circuitous routes that'd defeat jigsaw-like projections that involve messing around with cut edges or detachable triangles.
GWLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2021-01-03 at 10:08 AM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
-
2021-01-03, 11:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
-
2021-01-04, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
I thought of this immediately when I saw the thread, it seems Bohandas is a big fan of Segways and 3D goggles.
In all honesty though, there isn't really a "best" map projection. It is simply not possible to flatten a map of a spherical body in such way that it's useful in every scenario. Even a globe isn't always the answer. If you find yourself needing to use a map regularly just pick the projection that best suits your purpose.
EDIT: Fixed grammarLast edited by Tetrimino; 2021-01-06 at 06:57 PM.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- Douglas Adams
-
2021-01-04, 03:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2011
- Location
- Sharangar's Revenge
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
I also thought of the xkcd comic.
Anyone play through StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm? Kerrigan asks Abathar why he can continuously improve the swarm, but he can't make it perfect. He replies that 'perfect' is a moving target. A swarm that is perfect for one thing will be sub-optimal for another.
Same thing for the map projections. Each is 'perfect' for one or two things, but not one of them can really be used for everything. Even the globe has its problems, namely storage and scale.Last edited by Lord Torath; 2021-01-04 at 03:39 PM.
Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season
-
2021-01-04, 03:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Cippa's River Meadow
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
There's true there's no physical restrictions aside from how much fuel you can carry onboard, there are a couple of restrictions - first is political (back in the 80s, Russian airspace was restricted, so flying from the UK to HK involved a refuelling stopover in New Delhi) and the other is safety/regulatory where commercial aircraft have to remain within a certain flying time of an airport capable of handling it (ETOPS certification) in case of engine failure.
-
2021-01-04, 04:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Best map projection
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
-
2021-01-04, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
-
2021-01-04, 06:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
Re: Best map projection
So... pretty much this? While they cannot cover the whole world well I have a soft spot for conic projections for some reason.
In a war it doesn't matter who's right, only who's left.
-
2021-01-04, 08:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
Ahem.
This is why the French have been a major world power for quite a long time.Last edited by Peelee; 2021-01-04 at 08:33 PM.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
-
2021-01-04, 09:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
- Location
- Earth and/or not-Earth
- Gender
Re: Best map projection
I've always been partial to the Tarkin projection.
I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.