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Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

dominik-schwarz.net

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Re: Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

#201

Post by pndmnm »

igravious wrote: post #180
nemo1618 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So was that map the territory, or not?

I guess cuz it's fiction then the answer is no, the map is not the territory. Or come to think of it, maybe yes. Or both. Or neither. I actually have no idea. That's why I hate lit-crit. I do love me some Borges though. Maybe best not to sweat it.

Borges is what actually got me interesting in literary criticism -- because of the nature of his output, it's actually possible to read nearly all of his major work (poetry and nonfiction included). This makes reading lit-crit about him infinitely more satisfying. If you're remotely interested, I'd highly recommend "The Narrow Act", "Invisible Work", and particularly "The Mystery To A Solution", though this last one also requires a lot of Poe and even more patience.

Re: Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

#203

Post by pharke »

cuu508 wrote: post #39
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given his objectives specifically included high resolution enough to see details on the map up close, even a 4K projector would have fallen far short of this.

Yes, for 3mx2m at 300dpi one would need something like 35k projector

Projectors aren't limited to displaying static images, but I guess the format is a matter of taste.

Re: Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

#204

Post by carlob »

aw3c2 wrote: post #189
carlob wrote: post #122

I don't really understand why OP decided to print it and glue it in separate steps. It seems rather expensive rather than finding someone to do all the work. For example these guys would do the job for 142 euros http://sprint24.net/go/29ul/ I'm not sure they'd ship internationally though (or at all, for an item of that size).

Cleaned link: http://sprint24.net/buy/online/rigid-panels/panels/ Please don't use shortened URLs and don't sneak affiliate codes.

There was no affiliate code, the link only contained a bunch of query parameters to match the size and material of OP's map.

Re: Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

#205

Post by bbcbasic »

jamesfe wrote: post #102

I was formerly a cartographer with the military; I have lots of experience with large format maps, both of the world and of single countries (usually Iraq). It was fun to read an article about a map that wasn't hastily tacked up on a wall with nails or duct tape. A few notes: - Paper sags over time. Good thing he mounted it to a board - We printed on tyvek for water/rip proofing, which was interesting. It's surprisin…

Obligatory https://xkcd.com/977/

Re: Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

#207

Post by vacri »

cousin_it wrote: post #89
mewo2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I think I'm going to defend Mercator here. The Mercator projection was indeed originally designed for compass navigation, but the reason it's still used for web mapping is slightly different. The Mercator projection is conformal . What this means is that angles (and hence in some sense shapes) are preserved locally. When we zoom in on a small section of the Mercator projection, we…

If I understand correctly, Mercator is the only conformal projection where north is always up, no matter where you zoom in. That makes it nice for online maps. If you relax the "north is up" requirement, there's tons of conformal projections that look nice: http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjConf/projC... I really like the "classic Guyou" projection: http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjCo…

"classic Guyou"... the sizes and shapes of the landmasses are surprisingly realistic

I don't think so at all. Australia is fairly balanced east/west in real life, but on that projection it looks like it's got an eastern tumour. Africa looks like it's got a western tumour. Spain looks like it's the size of the Arabian Peninsula. The British Isles (300k sq km) are the same size as India (3M sq km). It looks horribly distorted compared to a map on a globe.

Re: Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

#208

Post by sliverstorm »

dietrichepp wrote: post #7

This guy "loves world maps" but chose Mercator for the wall of his room? I guess there's no accounting for taste. There are hundreds of projections to choose from, why choose the one optimized for navigation by compass ?

Stylistically speaking, Mercator is classic. If the map is just there as art, maybe your goal is to invoke the map on the wall of some ancient study in England.

Re: Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it

#209

Post by [deleted] »

anc84 wrote: post #11
dietrichepp wrote: post #7

This guy "loves world maps" but chose Mercator for the wall of his room? I guess there's no accounting for taste. There are hundreds of projections to choose from, why choose the one optimized for navigation by compass ?

I was hoping to see what he learned was projections. Still better than no map on the wall. The style looks lovely at this scale! I would have made my own map from NE and OSM data but not everyone knows how much great data is available for free and how easy making maps with it is. We who know should do a better job of sharing.

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