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Map Projection
In cartography, map projection is the term used to describe a broad set of transformations employed to represent the two-dimensional curved surface of a globe on a plane. In a map projection, coordinates, often expressed as latitude and longitude, of locations from the surface of the globe are transformed to coordinates on a plane. Projection is a necessary step in creating a two-dimensional map and is one of the essential elements of cartography. All projections of a sphere on a plane necessarily distort the surface in some way and to some extent. Depending on the purpose of the map, some distortions are acceptable and others are not; therefore, different map projections exist in order to preserve some properties of the sphere-like body at the expense of other properties. The study of map projections is primarily about the characterization of their distortions. There is no limit to the number of possible map projections. More generally, projections are considered in several fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claudius Ptolemy- The World
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy. Nonetheless, Claudius was an Italian of Sabine origins. As he had a limp and slight deafness due to sickness at a young age, he was ostracized by his family and was excluded from public office until his consulship (which was shared with his nephew, Caligula, in 37). Claudius's infirmity probably saved him from the fate of many other nobles during the purges throughout the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula, as potential enemies did not see him as a serious threat. His survival led to him being declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard after Caligula's assassination, at which point he was the last adult male of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29% of Earth's surface is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth's surface layer is formed of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates the magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of the Earth, deflecting destructive solar winds. The atmosphere of the Earth consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide (CO2) trap a part of the energy from the Sun close to the surface. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere and forms clouds that cover most of the planet. More sola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direction (geometry)
In geometry, the orientation, angular position, attitude, bearing, or direction of an object such as a line, plane or rigid body is part of the description of how it is placed in the space it occupies. More specifically, it refers to the imaginary rotation that is needed to move the object from a reference placement to its current placement. A rotation may not be enough to reach the current placement. It may be necessary to add an imaginary translation, called the object's location (or position, or linear position). The location and orientation together fully describe how the object is placed in space. The above-mentioned imaginary rotation and translation may be thought to occur in any order, as the orientation of an object does not change when it translates, and its location does not change when it rotates. Euler's rotation theorem shows that in three dimensions any orientation can be reached with a single rotation around a fixed axis. This gives one common way of represen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shape
A shape or figure is a graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture, or material type. A plane shape or plane figure is constrained to lie on a ''plane'', in contrast to ''solid'' 3D shapes. A two-dimensional shape or two-dimensional figure (also: 2D shape or 2D figure) may lie on a more general curved ''surface'' (a non-Euclidean two-dimensional space). Classification of simple shapes Some simple shapes can be put into broad categories. For instance, polygons are classified according to their number of edges as triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, etc. Each of these is divided into smaller categories; triangles can be equilateral, isosceles, obtuse, acute, scalene, etc. while quadrilaterals can be rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, squares, etc. Other common shapes are points, lines, planes, and conic sections such as ellipses, circles, and parabolas. Among the most c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Area
Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while ''surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-dimensional object. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat. It is the two-dimensional analogue of the length of a curve (a one-dimensional concept) or the volume of a solid (a three-dimensional concept). The area of a shape can be measured by comparing the shape to squares of a fixed size. In the International System of Units (SI), the standard unit of area is the square metre (written as m2), which is the area of a square whose sides are one metre long. A shape with an area of three square metres would have the same area as three such squares. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USGS Map Albers Conic Tall
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization's work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The agency was founded on March 3, 1879. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior; it is that department's sole scientific agency. The USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, and Menlo Park, California. The current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is "science for a changing world". The agency's previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its hundredth an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winkel Tripel Projection
The Winkel tripel projection (Winkel III), a modified azimuthal map projection of the world, is one of three projections proposed by German cartographer Oswald Winkel (7 January 1874 – 18 July 1953) in 1921. The projection is the arithmetic mean of the equirectangular projection and the Aitoff projection: The name ( German for 'triple') refers to Winkel's goal of minimizing three kinds of distortion: area, direction, and distance. Algorithm : \begin x &= \frac \left(\lambda \cos \varphi_1 + \frac\right), \\ y &= \frac \left(\varphi + \frac\right), \end where ''λ'' is the longitude relative to the central meridian of the projection, ''φ'' is the latitude, ''φ'' is the standard parallel for the equirectangular projection, sinc is the unnormalized cardinal sine function, and : \alpha = \arccos\left(\cos\varphi \cos \frac \right). In his proposal, Winkel set : \varphi_1 = \arccos \frac. A closed-form inverse mapping does not exist, and computing the inverse numeri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robinson Projection
The Robinson projection is a map projection of a world map which shows the entire world at once. It was specifically created in an attempt to find a good compromise to the problem of readily showing the whole globe as a flat image. The Robinson projection was devised by Arthur H. Robinson in 1963 in response to an appeal from the Rand McNally company, which has used the projection in general-purpose world maps since that time. Robinson published details of the projection's construction in 1974. The National Geographic Society (NGS) began using the Robinson projection for general-purpose world maps in 1988, replacing the Van der Grinten projection. In 1998 NGS abandoned the Robinson projection for that use in favor of the Winkel tripel projection, as the latter "reduces the distortion of land masses as they near the poles". Strengths and weaknesses The Robinson projection is neither equal-area nor conformal, abandoning both for a compromise. The creator felt that this produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. The National Geographic Society's logo is a yellow portrait frame—rectangular in shape—which appears on the margins surrounding the front covers of its magazines and as its television channel logo. Through National Geographic Partners (a joint venture with The Walt Disney Company), the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website, worldwide events, and other media operations. Overview The National Geographic Society was founded on 13 January 1888 "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge". It is governed by a board of trustees whose 33 members include distinguished educators, business exe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gall–Peters Projection
The Gall–Peters projection is a rectangular, equal-area map projection. Like all equal-area projections, it distorts most shapes. It is a cylindrical equal-area projection with latitudes 45° north and south as the regions on the map that have no distortion. The projection is named after James Gall and Arno Peters. Gall described the projection in 1855 at a science convention and published a paper on it in 1885. Peters brought the projection to a wider audience beginning in the early 1970s through his "Peters World Map". The name "Gall–Peters projection" was first used by Arthur H. Robinson in a pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986.American Cartographic Association's Committee on Map Projections, 1986. ''Which Map is Best'' p. 12. Falls Church: American Congress on Surveying and Mapping. Maps based on the projection are promoted by UNESCO, and they are also widely used by British schools. The U.S. state of Massachusetts and Boston Public Sch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinusoidal Projection
The sinusoidal projection is a pseudocylindrical equal-area map projection, sometimes called the Sanson–Flamsteed or the Mercator equal-area projection. Jean Cossin of Dieppe was one of the first mapmakers to use the sinusoidal, appearing in a world map of 1570. The projection represents the poles as points, as they are on the sphere, but the meridians and continents are distorted. The equator and the prime meridian are the most accurate parts of the map, having no distortion at all, and the further away from those that one examines, the greater the distortion. The projection is defined by: :\begin x &= \left(\lambda - \lambda_0\right) \cos \varphi \\ y &= \varphi\,\end where \varphi is the latitude, ''λ'' is the longitude, and ''λ'' is the longitude of the central meridian. Scale is constant along the central meridian, and east–west scale is constant throughout the map. Therefore, the length of each parallel on the map is proportional to the cosine of the latitude, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercator Projection
The Mercator projection () is a cylindrical map projection presented by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and south as down everywhere while preserving local directions and shapes. The map is thereby conformal. As a side effect, the Mercator projection inflates the size of objects away from the equator. This inflation is very small near the equator but accelerates with increasing latitude to become infinite at the poles. As a result, landmasses such as Greenland, Antarctica and Russia appear far larger than they actually are relative to landmasses near the equator, such as Central Africa. History There is some controversy over the origins of the Mercator. German polymath Erhard Etzlaub engraved miniature "compass maps" (about 10×8 cm) of Europe and parts of Africa that spanned latitudes 0°–67° to allow adjustment of his portable pock ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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