Re: OT: maps

First of all, thanks for responding. I'm getting really annoyed because I'm *this*
close to being able to establish political boundaries and suchlike for my
planet, but I can't start making maps until I can get a projection image that
doesn't horribly deform my continents.

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 09:09:58AM -0700, Heather Fleming wrote:
>> Out of curiosity, do any of the conworlders here have experience
>> with map creation? Specifically, how to correct distortion on a
>> projection map?
>You don't really correct distortion - you change projection types
>and/or the projections.
I guess what I meant was minimize the distortion for the areas I need by using
different projection types. I know you can't cut out distortion altogether.

>> I have a lovely relief/climate map pair that I created using a
>> "planet generator" program, but they're Cartesian projections (with
>> parallel straight longitudes) so the upper northern and southern
>> latitudes are all stretched and distorted.
>What are your options for exporting the data from the program?
>Given, for instance,  lat/lon points such that connecting them
>in the order given yields the desired coastline, I have programs
>I've written to create a variety of projection types and turn them
>into Postscript documents - although I can do other image formats
>as well.
Unfortunately the program is kind of limited - you can change the parameters for what you
want it to look like (land/water ratio, how broken up land masses are, etc.),
and how big/detailed the resulting image is, which is all very useful, but it
only has one output, a *.bmp image, which is less than ideal. (A vector image
would be better so it doesn't pixellate under magnification, particularly for
the relief map, but them's the breaks.)

I guess I'm looking for something that would let me take the original projected
image and change the projection on it (or parts of it). I know there are
different cartography programs and suchlike out there, but I'm just not sure
where to start.

Curse my insistence on having realistic (or at least reasonably realistic) maps
rather than generic rectangular fantasy continents bounded by mountains/oceans
on all sides. :)

Heather

_____________________________________________________________
Save rainforest for free with a Planet-Save.com e-mail account:
http://www.planet-save.com

Replies