Mercator projection is bad. By enabling the pole to be changed, we can better understand the distortions caused by the Mercator projection.. Make Greenland small again!
Mercator projection is bad. By enabling the pole to be changed, we can better understand the distortions caused by the Mercator projection.. Make Greenland small again!
This animation demonstrates something we all (ought to) know - that the Mercator projection is bad when it comes to showing sizes of continents and countries. It is just that we don't usually realize how bad.
The script allows you to change the poles of the world and have the world be reprojected on the mercator map. Greenland on Mercator seems really big because it is close to the pole. If you move Africa to the pole and then reproject, things look dramatically different. But not less accurate. It's definitely fun to play with and we might learn somethign too.
The javascript is done using Processing, which I wanted to check out. The math more or less seems to fit, though sometimes there's a hick-hup, so maybe it isn't perfect.