I'm sorry for posting a classic "shallow dismissal"... but this press-release speaks breathlessly of revolution when similar hemispherical-type projections have been around for ages. And it doesn't mention the major downside: it may minimize the metrics, but it's not great for where most people in the world actually live! It does seem interesting for a set of front/back disks of the Solar System, but that's a pretty different use case than for general geography. Okay, now I'm ready to have my shallow opinion corrected by an expert opinion :) but I could not help but take umbrage at what appears to be a submarine piece of folks trying to sell this to educational materials publishing houses.
Completely agree - when trying to use a map to understand things about the world that humans care about (the normal use-case of world maps!), it helps to have the places-where-things-that-humans-care-about easily visible and differentiable.
On the other hand, humans care a lot about climate change and this affects the poles a great deal, and maybe a projection that centers the poles like this can help make these regions of the world more visible.
I think the key idea of using both sides of the paper or whatever is a notable one, if over-promoted here. It has certainly gotten me thinking about how to improve on it. Maybe something origami-based where you can flip between surfaces with different hemispherical projections.
I really like the Fuller/Dymaxion map for this. It limits the distortion and you can "rebuild" the earth by folding the map back into an Icosahedron. (It is displayed in the article)
It's a world map. If you want a local map then this doesn't apply. I'm not sure what your point is "where people live".
I happen to originate from a different country than where I currently reside and on this map, the path that the plane takes makes a whole lot more sense. It seems to be a much better model of the world, to get better, you'd need a 3D globe.
Where people live just meant that choosing to distort the equator. This does not seem like a useful map to use if you are interested in Africa or South Asia! It's a tradeoff for all projections.
However, I don't want to go too hard on these guys. Reading the arXiv paper, I think it's clear that they wanted to make a cool set of disks for the Solar System. They actually look really cool for Jupiter and Saturn with their equatorial cloud bands and polar vortices! And centering on the poles gives a nice symmetry with the Earth and Mars with the ice caps.
They also show the version of Earth with the projection centered on the Western and Eastern hemispheres and the distortions are a lot more obvious (e.g., Alaska, Canada, and Australia are pretty bad). I can see why they like the North/South pole version.
Minimal distortions it might have, but is it useful? Both sides are centered on either totally-uninhabited or sparsely-inhabited regions, or wide open ocean.
If you're a tern or an albatross, this seems like a great map. But as a human I can't see myself using this for anything practical.
On the other hand, it's always nice to have new ways to marvel at the pale blue dot we inhabit.
I think it would be useful in the classroom when learning about maps. Everyone will learn and become familiar with the other projections, but this projection shows how distorted the others are. It would be good to know the (more) true size of landmasses early on.
Having it flat on paper can be more useful for classrooms that do not have a globe. And even if they have a globe, it's something that can be photocopied for every student to have. Also, I feel like it's easier for people to internalize the sizes when it's flat on paper vs looking at a globe.
"We have continuity over the equator. African and South America are draped over the edge, like a sheet over a clothesline, but they’re continuous."
Odd way to characterize a map that cuts the equatorial region literally in half. It is true you can rotate the two circles so that whichever longitude you want is touching though, that's nice. They picked something around 5 degrees east, or just about the middle longitude of the landmass of Africa.
The most unusual feature of this projection is how it heavily emphasizes the two poles, literally centering them. Most maps you don't really get any sense of the Antarctic continent at all.
* It can be displayed with the Eastern and Western Hemispheres on the two sides, or in Gott’s preferred orientation, the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, which conveniently allows the equator to run around the edge.*
I mean I would say that is very, very inconvenient. Seems very awkward to use.
This might be a silly question, but why wouldn't they divide the globe through the oceans, rather than through large land masses? These are not adjusted like they did, but roughly like these
https://postimg.cc/D4Kx6Rqchttps://postimg.cc/9rhkYwbj
Nevermind, they mention it, they just don't have a picture:
"It can be displayed with the Eastern and Western Hemispheres on the two sides, or in Gott’s preferred orientation, the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, which conveniently allows the equator to run around the edge. Either way, this is a map with no boundary cuts."
Map projections are tools that all have pros and cons. I do not really see how pasting two Equidistant Azimuthal Projections on both sides of paper "re-imagines" the world map.
The choice of having the focus of this map on the poles (the two most uninhabitable places on earth) is interesting. These two points are the least distorted on the map.
I love maps (and atlases), but do printed maps really matter much in practice anymore?
Most of us looked at this on a device that already contains either a 3D model of the Earth, or a web browser that will happily display one in seconds. We can now easily view undistorted views of the world whenever we want — why do we even need ‘better’ 2D maps of the world?
What's frustrating is the author makes no mention of other polar projections[1]. How is this projection novel in comparison to those? I don't get what is new here. Maybe I missed the point.
29 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 41.6 ms ] threadOn the other hand, humans care a lot about climate change and this affects the poles a great deal, and maybe a projection that centers the poles like this can help make these regions of the world more visible.
This feature of the map seemed particularly unique:
"To measure distances from one side to the other, you can use string or measuring tape reaching from one side of the disk to the other, he suggested."
I happen to originate from a different country than where I currently reside and on this map, the path that the plane takes makes a whole lot more sense. It seems to be a much better model of the world, to get better, you'd need a 3D globe.
However, I don't want to go too hard on these guys. Reading the arXiv paper, I think it's clear that they wanted to make a cool set of disks for the Solar System. They actually look really cool for Jupiter and Saturn with their equatorial cloud bands and polar vortices! And centering on the poles gives a nice symmetry with the Earth and Mars with the ice caps.
They also show the version of Earth with the projection centered on the Western and Eastern hemispheres and the distortions are a lot more obvious (e.g., Alaska, Canada, and Australia are pretty bad). I can see why they like the North/South pole version.
If you're a tern or an albatross, this seems like a great map. But as a human I can't see myself using this for anything practical.
On the other hand, it's always nice to have new ways to marvel at the pale blue dot we inhabit.
Having it flat on paper can be more useful for classrooms that do not have a globe. And even if they have a globe, it's something that can be photocopied for every student to have. Also, I feel like it's easier for people to internalize the sizes when it's flat on paper vs looking at a globe.
Odd way to characterize a map that cuts the equatorial region literally in half. It is true you can rotate the two circles so that whichever longitude you want is touching though, that's nice. They picked something around 5 degrees east, or just about the middle longitude of the landmass of Africa.
The most unusual feature of this projection is how it heavily emphasizes the two poles, literally centering them. Most maps you don't really get any sense of the Antarctic continent at all.
> But that still had the “boundary cut” problem of splitting the Pacific Ocean and creating the illusion of great distance between Asia and Hawaii.
By their definition of "continuous" you could do a similar draping of Winkel Tripel on 2 sides of a surface, eliminating the "boundary cut".
I mean I would say that is very, very inconvenient. Seems very awkward to use.
Centering on your preferred landmass (country, continent, city state) is a easy and natural.
I mention this because the majority of the commentary here is about the specific hemispheres chosen.
The choice of having the focus of this map on the poles (the two most uninhabitable places on earth) is interesting. These two points are the least distorted on the map.
Here is an observable that lets you drag around landmasses in different projections [https://observablehq.com/@fil/synchronized-projections]
You like Issac Asimov, XML, and shoes with toes. ... You type in Dvorak.
With the Dymaxion, he had me with the first part, and the last part inspired me to learn Dvorak. I've been happily typing with it since 2016.
Most of us looked at this on a device that already contains either a 3D model of the Earth, or a web browser that will happily display one in seconds. We can now easily view undistorted views of the world whenever we want — why do we even need ‘better’ 2D maps of the world?
[1] https://nsidc.org/data/polar-stereo