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A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

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Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#71

Post by omegaworks »

logicallee wrote: post #69
johnnyhillbilly wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally, I don't use maps to compare the size of continents. That's what tables and lists are for. I use them to see where geographical areas are relative to one another. Others have other needs, depending on what they do with their lives. I think you bring a nasty tone to the conversation, and you bring straw men and appeals to emotion with a rehearsed disregard for the practical issues others work with.

The comment I quoted was incredibly dismissive with "it simply isn't that important to everyday life of most map users". In my personal opinion - and I'm not that big of a map expert - the reason Mercator projection is popular is because it makes the United States as well as Europe bigger and more prominent, and shrinks areas its users care less about. It has nothing to do in my opinion with showing where geographic…

Love how "nasty" is coming into use as a denunciation aimed at the presenter of inconvenient facts.

"Nasty tone." "Nasty woman." :)

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#72

Post by yongjik »

gcb0 wrote: post #65
Waterluvian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't work as a cartographer but I studied geography for a Bachelor's and Master's. That being said, my knowledge has atrophied a lot. I was exposed to hundreds of map projections in school, so I'm still kind of trying to figure out what the novelty is here. It just looks like a Japan-centrerd equal-area projection. The tetrahedron is kind of neat. Projections are generally planar, cylindrical, or conical. By using…

you nailed it. Japan has a huge love for Japan centered maps. if you look at any early nes or Sega games, all the maps are your familiar Cartesian but with Japan in the center, making the jump from ny to London look much longer than la to Tokyo.

> Japan has a huge love for Japan centered maps.

You make it sound as if it's unusual. Of course they prefer Japan in the middle, they're in Japan! Just like Brits (I presume) have a huge love for Britain-centered maps. I'll bet not a single world map in British textbooks has the world cut in the Atlantic.

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#73

Post by yongjik »

ludwigschubert wrote: post #11

While interesting, I'm not sure the actual map as pictured is a "good design": One of the strengths and success criteria of the Mercator projection is that it allows us to largely ignore the vastness of the Pacific Ocean on our maps. Notice how much of this map is taken up by it. While interesting from a planetary perspective, it simply isn't that important to everyday life of most map users. The proposed design thus…

> One of the strengths and success criteria of the Mercator projection is that it allows us to largely ignore the vastness of the Pacific Ocean on our maps.

...which would be indeed useful if your country and its neighbors are on the opposite side of the Earth from the Pacific. If your country and most of its important trade partners are sitting right around the Pacific, the "strength" is now shortcoming.

Frankly, I didn't know so many people would claim that a world map centered around Europe has some inherent virtue, instead of being the result of local convenience (nothing wrong with that). This is the same kind of feel-good story as "Fahrenheit is superior because 0 and 100 are at human level."

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#74

Post by [deleted] »

omegaworks wrote: post #71
logicallee wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment I quoted was incredibly dismissive with "it simply isn't that important to everyday life of most map users". In my personal opinion - and I'm not that big of a map expert - the reason Mercator projection is popular is because it makes the United States as well as Europe bigger and more prominent, and shrinks areas its users care less about. It has nothing to do in my opinion with showing where geographic…

Love how "nasty" is coming into use as a denunciation aimed at the presenter of inconvenient facts. "Nasty tone." "Nasty woman." :)

[deleted]

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#75

Post by ant6n »

kuschku wrote: post #34
ant6n wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean the continents are not distorted. South America looks pretty distorted to me, so does Australia.

A lot less than on Mercator, which is the only other projection with the same properties.

Mercator is not area-preserving. It's angle preserving. It's perfect for things like Google Maps, because no matter where you zoom in, a small geographical area will not be distorted. It will merely be represented at a different scale. When zoomed in, there are no distortions using Mercator.

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#76

Post by madaxe_again »

wott wrote: post #70

Okaaay... I find this map is a terrible design in several obvious ways (obvious as hurting my eyes in a matter of seconds). * Blue colour for lands. No comment... * Most space, and especially the main one: center, is occupied by boring useless oceans. * Then the remaining of the central space is occupied by the largest countries: very little information there. * The most interesting parts, i.e. where there are plenty…

So - even ignoring the colour and the point chosen for tesselation, which your first four points address, as you say this projection is bizarre as it has awful distortions (see the width of south vs North America and how the meridian lines are spaced), and the lack of navigability bought about by the twisted axis, and absence of north and south.

You want to show the globe accurately, you show a globe.

You want a better projection - turn Mercator on its side.

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#77

Post by Mz »

wott wrote: post #70

Okaaay... I find this map is a terrible design in several obvious ways (obvious as hurting my eyes in a matter of seconds). * Blue colour for lands. No comment... * Most space, and especially the main one: center, is occupied by boring useless oceans. * Then the remaining of the central space is occupied by the largest countries: very little information there. * The most interesting parts, i.e. where there are plenty…

Most space, and especially the main one: center, is occupied by boring useless oceans.

Most of the world is, in fact, covered by ocean. This map cleverly is centered on Japan, the country that awarded the design. It appears to be fairly well proportioned and to not weirdly distort land masses that are typically wildly distorted, such as Greenland and Antarctica.

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#78

Post by Waterluvian »

yongjik wrote: post #72
gcb0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you nailed it. Japan has a huge love for Japan centered maps. if you look at any early nes or Sega games, all the maps are your familiar Cartesian but with Japan in the center, making the jump from ny to London look much longer than la to Tokyo.

> Japan has a huge love for Japan centered maps. You make it sound as if it's unusual. Of course they prefer Japan in the middle, they're in Japan! Just like Brits (I presume) have a huge love for Britain-centered maps. I'll bet not a single world map in British textbooks has the world cut in the Atlantic.

Japan is known for an exceptional level of nationalism through history. But yeah, you see this a lot.

Re: A Map of the World Won Japan’s Prestigious Design Award

#79

Post by kuschku »

ant6n wrote: post #75
kuschku wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot less than on Mercator, which is the only other projection with the same properties.

Mercator is not area-preserving. It's angle preserving. It's perfect for things like Google Maps, because no matter where you zoom in, a small geographical area will not be distorted. It will merely be represented at a different scale. When zoomed in, there are no distortions using Mercator.

Correct. Which this one does well enough, too, at the scales required for web maps.

Which makes this very awesome.

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