A new way to flatten the earth

Abstract

Projecting the Earth on a flat map is one of the most important ways people use to learn about the planet. Throughout history, a large variety of world maps have been designed for different purposes, such as to learn about countries or to navigate a long voyage. However, such maps can never be perfect due to the contradictory properties. Approaches have been proposed in order to reduce distortion, but cartographers have not yet considered how to produce a continuous projection which can best preserve important regions. In this thesis, we design and implement two systems, one automatic and one interactive, to produce projections that can preserve selective regions better without making the map discontinuous. The systems allow users to highlight their preference in making a useful map tailored to them. Our tools can generate a map according to these settings. We also conducted a user study to evaluate our systems and compare our results with existing maps.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology