Earth Reshaped: Designing World Map Projections

Registration URL: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3682489120918241284
Webinar ID: 678-151-667

Abstract

Tom Patterson will discuss the making of the Natural Earth, Natural Earth II, and Patterson projections in collaboration with Bernhard Jenny and Bojan Savric, Oregon State University. The effort began with the development of Flex Projector, a free, cross-platform application for designing new world map projections via graphical controls. With this software was designed to improve the venerable Robinson projection. The resulting Natural Earth projection, also a compromise pseudo-cylindrical projection, has better distortion properties, a taller height-to-width aspect ratio, and slightly rounded corners where the pole lines and lateral meridians meet. The Natural Earth II is a follow up projection with a highly-rounded shape that took its design inspiration from the Mollweide. The third projection, the eponymous Patterson, is a cylindrical derived from the Miller, but with significantly less polar distortion. All three new map projections are intended for general-purpose mapmaking.