Lab 4

Fuller Projection: Presented to the world in the March 1, 1943, edition of Life magazine, the Dymaxion map or Fuller (after creator Buckminster Fuller) map is a projection of a world map onto the surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions. The flat map is heavily interrupted in order to preserve shapes and sizes. Fuller applied for a patent in the United States in February 1944, the patent application showing a projection onto a cuboctahedron. The patents were issued in January 1946.

Azimuthal Equidistant Projection: The useful property of this projection is from the center point all points on the map are at proportionately correct distances, and all points on the map are at the correct azimuth (direction) from the center point. A useful application for this type of projection is a polar projection which shows all meridians (lines of longitude) as straight, with distances from the north pole represented correctly. The flag of the United Nations contains an example of a polar azimuthal equidistant projection.

Two-point Equidistant Projection: First described by Hans Maurer in 1919 this projection is a generalization of the much simpler azimuthal equidistant projection. Two locus points are chosen by the mapmaker to configure the projection. Distances from the two loci to any other point on the map are correct: that is, they scale to the distances of the same points on the sphere. The projection has been used for all maps of the Asian continent by the National Geographic Society atlases to reduce distortion and sometimes appears in maps of air routes.

Mercator projection: A cylindrical map projection presented by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant course as straight segments which conserve the angles with the meridians. .As in all cylindrical projections, parallels and meridians are straight and perpendicular to each other. In accomplishing this, the unavoidable east-west stretching of the map, which increases as distance away from the equator increases, is accompanied in the Mercator projection by a corresponding north-south stretching, so that at every point location, the east-west scale is the same as the north-south scale, making the projection conformal. Although the Mercator projection is still used commonly for navigation, due to its unique properties, cartographers agree that it is not suited to general reference world maps due to its distortion of land area.

Cylindrical Equal-area Projection:  The term "normal cylindrical projection" is used to refer to any projection in which meridians are mapped to equally spaced vertical lines and circles of latitude are mapped to horizontal lines. The mapping of meridians to vertical lines can be visualized by imagining a cylinder (of which the axis coincides with the Earth's axis of rotation) wrapped around the Earth and then projecting onto the cylinder, and subsequently unfolding the cylinder.