denoted ?, meridians connect the North Pole to the South poles by a set of imaginary lines, and perpendicular with each parallels of latitude. The length of 1º of longitude varies with varying latitude. At the Equator, they are the same length as a degree of latitude, but decrease polewards (Snyder 1987)
Published in Chapter:
Overview, Classification and Selection of Map Projections for Geospatial Applications
Eric Delmelle (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA) and Raymond Dezzani (University of Idaho, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 10
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59140-995-3.ch012
Abstract
There has been a dramatic increase in the handling of geospatial information, and also in the production of maps. However, because the Earth is three-dimensional, geo-referenced data must be projected on a two-dimensional surface. Depending on the area being mapped, the projection process generates a varying amount of distortion, especially for continental and world maps. Geospatial users have a wide variety of projections too choose from; it is therefore important to understand distortion characteristics for each of them. This chapter reviews foundations of map projection, such as map projection families, distortion characteristics (areal, angular, shape and distance), geometric features and special properties. The chapter ends by a discussion on projection selection and current research trends."