Why Mercator for the Web?

Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by aspir on Saturday May 30, 2015 @03:05PM (#9631373)

I'd love to see a mapping service with dynamic projection functionality based on zoom and window view. The concept of one fixed projection doesn't account for the nature of digital mapping today.

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Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by magicalist on Saturday May 30, 2015 @03:25PM (#9631451)

Yes, I'd love a major mapping service to consider something like http://cartography.oregonstate.edu/demos/AdaptiveCompositeMa...

We now have maps that resemble nothing like any paper map before. There's no reason at all they have to be like zooming closer to the biggest paper map ever made.

(Web) Mercator is almost certainly the right choice for the things most people use maps for: local directions, routing etc. Minimal distortion on that scale. If you look at the "Projection Diagram" on that page, Mercator is only used for the highest zoom levels, however. Above that it's adaptive based on both zoom and latitude.

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Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by kuschku on Saturday May 30, 2015 @05:06PM (#9631761)

By the way, a comparison between Google Maps in satellite view and in map view: http://imgur.com/a/GXczm

(satellite view uses a projection on a sphere, and then renders the sphere from the users current viewpoint)

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Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by panic on Saturday May 30, 2015 @11:12PM (#9632892)

The transition into Mercator is pretty jarring at high latitudes (try zooming into Greenland). I wonder if there's a good way to smoothly interpolate between projections as you zoom.

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Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by mbq on Saturday May 30, 2015 @06:04PM (#9631924)

I like the idea to just show the globe (i.e. orthographic projection); it is familiar, interactive, distortions are not deceiving and naturally disappear with zoom.

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Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by kuya on Saturday May 30, 2015 @08:09PM (#9632412)

i built an interactive virtual globe using open gl (like nasa worldwind/google earth, but with real time satellite imagery). it's super fun.

when you're dealing with things like constellations of satellites, it's often useful to have a map alternative, since you can only (continuously) see half the earth at once with a globe.

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Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by jacobolus on Saturday May 30, 2015 @04:00PM (#9631559)

There’s been some work along these lines recently:

http://cartography.oregonstate.edu/pdf/2012_Jenny_AdaptiveCo...

http://web.stanford.edu/~sukolsak/projects/cs448b_final_pape...

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Re:Why Mercator for the Web? by Retric on Sunday May 31, 2015 @12:08AM (#9633031)

The Mercator distortion automatically decreases as you increase zoom levels. Street level zoom is only noticeable really close to the poles so even micmerdo staion looks fine.

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