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    Keeping areas very realistic in Mercator projection

    Map Making
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    • Anil Yuksel
      Anil Yuksel last edited by

      We all know that areas gets bigger and bigger while getting closer to the poles in Mercator Projection which is very unrealistic and unpleasant to see. But it is a necessary thing to keep angles straight. I just though there is a way to scale landmasses more realistically in Mercator.

      Here is the World map on Mercator. Red line is Equator.

      Mercator.png

      Here is an Alternative World map which Equator Line is moved towards the North.

      Mercator2.png

      My question is which line would be the best as hypothetical Equator Line to scale maximum amount of landmasses more realistically? Is there any way to create new World Map based on Mercator and hypothetical Equator line?

      ubernaut C 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • ubernaut
        ubernaut Moderators @Anil Yuksel last edited by

        @anil-yuksel mercator projection isn't very useful for this game since most of the areas of conflict are shrunk and the areas where nothing happens are enlarged i dont think the equator placement has much to do with it

        Anil Yuksel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Anil Yuksel
          Anil Yuksel @ubernaut last edited by

          @ubernaut I know a distortion is still needed but Mercator is still better than other projections for this task because it enlarges Europe and keeps angles and original land shapes.

          ubernaut 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ubernaut
            ubernaut Moderators @Anil Yuksel last edited by

            @anil-yuksel most of the maps are mercator-like but not actually mercator

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            • C
              Cernel Moderators @Anil Yuksel last edited by

              @anil-yuksel If you would make a para-mercator with the equator at +30, like in your second picture, I doubt you would obtain what you are aiming for. That would

              • make the +30 the smallest-drawn part of the map, also smaller than all Africa south of it, so you have the most important part of Africa being the smallest one (so very little space for Rommel) and
              • make everything south of +30 increasingly bigger, especially making Madagascar, Australia and New Zealand very huge.

              However, such escamotage would also reduce the scaling north of +30, with the result that that portion of the map will be somewhere between Mercator and equirectangular, which would help toning down the area distortions within Europe, but I'm not seeing why not just going for equirectangular, instead.

              This said, using Mercator set at an arbitrary equatorial latitude so to distort dimensions as preferred is a rather smart idea, but I'm not seeing it related in any way with this topic because this would certainly not "keep angles straight". I would rather pick the latitude I want to blow up in dimensions and have two para-Mercators north and south of it, each having a para-equator equidistant from that latitude.


              All in all, if you want to have any sensible degree of geographic realism (especially representing the fact that moving longitudinally is increasingly faster the farther away you are from the equator, which, TripleA-wise, means wider and wider zones), you really must not use the Mercator unless you are fine having increasingly bigger territories the more you go north (like, for example, having much bigger territories around Leningrad than in Caucasus). Moreover, a realistic WW2 map needs to have northern Norway, Murmansk and Archangel as part of it, which means you will have a Scandinavia being much bigger than Italy when Italy is arguably no less important than Scandinavia.


              @ubernaut Are they equirectangular, right?

              ubernaut Anil Yuksel 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • ubernaut
                ubernaut Moderators @Cernel last edited by

                @cernel kinda i guess but really the areas that need more space are blown up usually and a lot of the distances for oceans are not correct at all depending on the map.

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                • Anil Yuksel
                  Anil Yuksel @Cernel last edited by

                  @cernel Currently I am not interesting in to create a World Map, just wondering how would the things looks like with this hypothetical Equator line on Mercator.

                  • North Africa is already very big, so the shrinking problem can easily be solved by incorporating more areas from Sahara.

                  • Madagascar, Australia and New Zealand would be indeed bigger but these areas can be easily cut and replaced by the defaults ones from Mercator.

                  C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • C
                    Cernel Moderators @Anil Yuksel last edited by

                    @anil-yuksel You want a Mercator map with latitude +30 being the equator?

                    Anil Yuksel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Anil Yuksel
                      Anil Yuksel @Cernel last edited by

                      @cernel Yes.

                      C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • C
                        Cernel Moderators @Anil Yuksel last edited by

                        @anil-yuksel said in Keeping areas very realistic in Mercator projection:

                        @cernel Yes.

                        Here it is a Mercator projection made under the assumption that +30 latitude is 0 latitude (the equator) and +90 latitude is +45 latitude (-90 latitude is still -90) while there is a huge empty sea north of +45. As you can see, Australia is relatively very big. I've cut some space north and south.
                        Mercator-90+45 - cut - small.png

                        Anil Yuksel 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Anil Yuksel
                          Anil Yuksel @Cernel last edited by

                          @cernel Thank you. Which program did you use to create it?

                          C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • C
                            Cernel Moderators @Anil Yuksel last edited by

                            @anil-yuksel "G.ProjectorWin", from the NASA if I remember correctly.

                            Here it is a less cut version: it goes up a pixel past the northernmost land border and down till part of Antartica:
                            Mercator-90+45(max80) - cut - small.png

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • LaFayette
                              LaFayette Admin last edited by

                              Slightly off topic, but I thought y'all might enjoy this read: https://www.mapbox.com/blog/adaptive-projections

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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