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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

#91

Post by johnnyhillbilly »

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…

I understand. The projection you link to here is the one I keep in my living room.

About satire and/or parody: I would try to master the form first, as well as finding out where it's effective. 'Allo 'allo and Candide are in my opinion brilliant examples. In a rational discussion it easily appears a bit like mockery, or "did you stop beating your wife".

As for the comment you replied to: I find it very credible that these things aren't so important to everyday map users. The Mercator projection does have its advantages for some applications. Other projections for other applications. Putting a sphere on a rectangular piece of paper will involve tradeoffs.

The sheer utility of a suitable projection far outweighs any notions of trying to put any particular nation or continent - for most people.

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

#92

Post by hudibras »

ekianjo wrote: post #10

The Good Design Award is not prestigious anymore, nowadays they routinely allow about any company to feature a good design logo on all kind of ridiculous items like PET bottles and so on.

These don't seem so bad to me: http://ns3ns.muji.co.jp/store/cmdty/detail/4547315758371?rec...

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

#93

Post by contingencies »

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.

Same here in China: not bad for we expat Australians!

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

#94

Post by klodolph »

jpatokal wrote: post #85
klodolph wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking for a map where a straightish line gives you the direct path between two points? That's completely impossible. Flying from LA to Tokyo will take you over Alaska. Try to work that one out on a map. (Yeah, you can make a map where straight lines work, but only for a chosen point of origin or antipodes around that point.)

Then why are you labeling it "completely impossible"? Here's a perfectly sensible straightish-line path between LAX and NRT, using a polar-aspect orthographic projection: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=LAX-NRT&MS=wls&MP=p&DU=mi

Yes, if you cherry pick the right projection for a particular route you'll get something like that, which is exactly what I said. But plot Johannesburg to Sydney on the same map.

What I said is impossible is to have a map where all routes between pairs of points look sensible. It gets worse if you optimize for other factors, like making maps equal-area, conformal, rectilinear, etc.

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

#95

Post by IgorPartola »

jessaustin wrote: post #67
moogly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully one day the creator of xkcd will make a comic strip about how xkcd references are, in fact, not obligatory.

If he does, it will only remain amusing for a couple of days...

I think it will just become the default reply to someone posting the Obligatory link.

Also, I regret nothing!

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

#96

Post by anderskaseorg »

kuschku wrote: post #41
ryandrake wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like this is just another "equal area" projection. Many of these exist. Map projections are design to minimize certain distortions but at the expense of additional other distortions. Obviously since the world is round, you cannot minimize all of them. Other examples of distortions that a projection can aim to minimize are: distance, direction, scale, angle. An example of another existing equal area projectio…

Correct, but this is one that has two important properties: It tiles, so it can be used for web maps, and you only need to rotate it to always have it point north, so it can be used for mobile maps. Google Maps, and similar tile systems, can’t have the local area undistorted and pointed in the right direction without these properties – and this map fulfills them.

The AuthaGraph map is an equal area map, not a conformal map, so its local maps are distorted. For example, you can see that the meridians and parallels fail to meet at right angles.

The similar Lee Conformal Tetrahedric projection (http://www.csiss.org/map-projections/Miscellaneous/Lee_Confo...) has undistorted local maps, at the expense of somewhat large area differences for different regions (though perhaps not as bad as Mercator).

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

#97

Post by jpatokal »

klodolph wrote: post #94
jpatokal wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why are you labeling it "completely impossible"? Here's a perfectly sensible straightish-line path between LAX and NRT, using a polar-aspect orthographic projection: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=LAX-NRT&MS=wls&MP=p&DU=mi

Yes, if you cherry pick the right projection for a particular route you'll get something like that, which is exactly what I said. But plot Johannesburg to Sydney on the same map. What I said is impossible is to have a map where all routes between pairs of points look sensible. It gets worse if you optimize for other factors, like making maps equal-area, conformal, rectilinear, etc.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JNB-SYD&MP=polar&DU=mi ?

There's an easy way to make all routes between pairs of points look sensible at once: plot them on a 3D globe ;)

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

#98

Post by wst_ »

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.

It isn't that. Or at least not only that. They are pragmatic nation. They are considering who and why would want to use the map, and then tailor it to meet the needs of an audience.

I am not sure about other countries but European maps are always oriented for north. Which works fine when you read them in book, but not necessarily when you are looking at big guide map on the street. Yes, sure, this map may show red "you are here" mark, but it is still difficult to find out your way as a map itself is always oriented to north, while you may not be.

Japanese street maps are oriented on you (most of them). When you're standing in front of it - "up" on map always means "go forward". Which might be confusing at the beginning, if you came from Europe. But the more you look at them, the more easy it is to find your way.

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

#99

Post by JackFr »

pfortuny wrote: post #48
win_ini wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it may be your bias based on your entire lifetime of looking at Mercator projections? The purpose of this project is to make it an accurate representation. The observations you make are precisely why this made was made.

The question is: why "areas" are more accurate than distances/angles in a map? So: this map has very good properties in some sense, very bad in others.

That's simply it. Mercator won mindshare because it was most useful for people who needed maps to do their jobs. If I'm setting a course for some destination I don't really care what the land area of Greenland is, I want to know the correct heading.

This map may solve some imaginary problem of public perception, but at the cost of losing valuable information easily gleaned from other maps,like northern and southern hemisphere, which places share the same latitude, which places share the same longitude. These are physical distinctions which matter.

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