World map WIP

[selden]

A couple of things to bear in mind when making a cylindrical map:

1. The land masses near the north and south poles need to be stretched wide, since when they're projected onto a sphere, they get squashed horizontally. For example, below is a picture showing what the south pole of your current map looks like when it has been drawn on a sphere. You might have intended the spikes, but I'm guessing not.


2. The width should be 2x the height. e.g. 2000x1000. The maps you've published here are 1860x1176, so you've drawn the land masses somewhat taller or narrower than perhaps they ought to be. (More appropriate dimensions for the maps would have been 1860x920 or 2352x1176.) This is because the circumference of a globe all the way around the equator is twice as far as the distance between its North and South poles, which is only halfway around the globe.

I hope these comments help a little.

p.s. I do like the style and lettering, though!

[mearrin69]

Thanks for the info. That looks totally horrid on a globe...guess I misjudged the amount of distortion that would occur.

As to the 2:1 ratio, however, I used (or tried to anyway) the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection (link). This is just the western hemisphere. I think the measurements of the whole map are 8"x22.something. I reckon from your comments that this isn't standard? I'm a 3D graphics kind of guy and it worked just like a standard cylindrical projection in 3D so it made sense to me. Is the 2:1 thing the most-often used in cartography? What's the projection called? I'd like to look it up.

Heh. Guess you can tell I'm a total newbie.

Thanks for the help!
M