What was the original purpose of the Mercator projection?
What was the original purpose of the Mercator projection?
In 1569, Mercator published his epic world map. This map, with its Mercator projection, was designed to help sailors navigate around the globe. They could use latitude and longitude lines to plot a straight route. Mercator’s projection laid out the globe as a flattened version of a cylinder.
What does a Mercator projection cause?
Although the linear scale is equal in all directions around any point, thus preserving the angles and the shapes of small objects, the Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite.
What projection did Mercator use?
cylindrical projection
For him to achieve this, Mercator made a projection that retained the 90° angles between the longitude and latitude lines which resulted to a cylindrical projection. The Mercator projection is not a physical projection and is not applicable to be made by using geometric tools as well.
What are three positives of the Mercator projection?
Advantages of Mercator’s projection: – preserves angles and therefore also shapes of small objects – close to the equator, the distortion of lengths and areas is insignificant – a straight line on the map corresponds with a constant compass direction, it is possible to sail and fly using a constant azimuth – simple …
What is the major weakness of the Mercator projection?
Disadvantages: Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the Equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite. So, for example, Greenland and Antarctica appear much larger relative to land masses near the equator than they actually are.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a Mercator projection?
Advantage: The Mercator map projection shows the correct shapes of the continents and directions accurately. Disadvantage: The Mercator map projection does not show true distances or sizes of continents, especially near the north and south poles.
Why the Mercator map is bad?
Mercator maps distort the shape and relative size of continents, particularly near the poles. The popular Mercator projection distorts the relative size of landmasses, exaggerating the size of land near the poles as compared to areas near the equator.
What four distortions are there in the Robinson projection?
There are four main types of distortion that come from map projections: distance, direction, shape and area.
What are the disadvantages of the Robinson projection?
List of the Disadvantages of the Robinson Projection
- Distortions exist on the edges of the map.
- It offers limited benefits for navigation.
- The Robinson projection is not equidistant.
- It does not provide azimuthal support.
- The projection suffers from compression in severe ways.
What is the purpose of Robinson projection?
The Robinson projection is unique. Its primary purpose is to create visually appealing maps of the entire world. It is a compromise projection; it does not eliminate any type of distortion, but it keeps the levels of all types of distortion relatively low over most of the map.
Why is the Mercator projection the standard map projection?
It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and south as down everywhere while preserving local directions and shapes. The map is thereby conformal. As a side effect, the Mercator projection inflates the size of objects away from the equator.
When did Gerardus Mercator come up with the projection?
It was presented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569. The Web Mercator variant of the projection is the de facto standard for web maps and online services. It is available in ArcGIS Pro 1.0 and later and in ArcGIS Desktop 8.0 and later.
Is the graticule symmetric in the Mercator projection?
The poles project to infinity and cannot be shown on the map. The graticule is symmetric across the equator and the central meridian. Mercator is a conformal map projection. Directions, angles, and shapes are maintained at infinitesimal scale. Any straight line drawn on this projection represents an actual compass bearing.
When to use the Universal Transverse Mercator projection?
The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection, developed by the U.S. Army, is widely used in topographic maps. This projection is recommended for areas lying between 84°N to 80°S.