Interactive Cartography

Alex Pang
Computer Science Department
University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064

pang @cse.ucsc.edu
www.cse.ucsc.edu/research/avis/map. html

There are hundreds of projections in standard use,

and often the most important consideration in map use
is the type of projection to use for a particular purpose.
For instance, the popular Mercator projection has been
used heavily in navigation because true compass bearings are represented as straight lines on the map, a valuable characteristic. Other projections may be used to
minimize the effects of distortion in a particular area of
interest.
Many map projections can be classified by the shape
of the intermediate developable surface used for projection. Figure 1 shows several spheres inscribed in
three such shapes. A cylindrical projection is created
by projecting every point on the sphere onto the surface of the cylinder. The cylinder is then cut along
the length of its body and laid flat to produce the map.
Likewise for a cone and a plane, producing conic and
planar projections, respectively, The point or loci of
points of the developable shape tangent to the sphere
define a region of constant scale. Note that not every
projection can be associated with a geometric object.
In fact there is an important class of projections that are
constructed mathematically and have a shape similar to
an oval. Some of these are called pseudocylindrical
because of some similarities to the cylindrical class [2].
Many other projections are grouped as miscellaneous
projections, and include intermpted projections and the
Van der Grinten, which is circular but not planar [2].
The user interface of the Interactive Cartography program described in Section 2 uses this classification to
aid users in selecting a map projection.

We present a software program that allows users to

interactively create different map projections. The system allows users to view a representation of the earth
simultaneously as a sphere and as a projection with
the ability to interact with both images. Map projections are created by projecting the sphere onto one of
three developable surfaces. The choices are a cylinder, cone, or a plane. The surface can then be manipulated interactively e.g. orientation, size, distance,
adjust central meridian, etc. to instantly create the
corresponding map projection. The projection calculations take advantage of the GCTPC package provided by the USGS. Our implementation is written
in C++ and uses OpenGL for the graphics rendering.
The graphical user interface is built using FLTK. This
software has been tested on SGIs and SUNS running
Unix, and PCs running both Linux and NT. Software
as well as additional information are available from
www.cse.ucsc.edu/research/avis/map.html.

Key Words and Phrases: Map projections, cylindrical, conical, planar, educational software.

INTRODUCTION

The problem of projecting a spherical object to a flat

surface has intrigued cartographers, mathematicians
and navigators for over 2500 years [l]. A sphere is
not a developable surface, thus any system of conversion to a planar surface must include some stretching
or squashing of some or all of the areas on the original surface. More precisely, distortion is based on the
concept of scale at a point in a direction on a map. On
a globe, scale can be considered unity everywhere and
in every direction, except at the poles. The process of
projection introduces changes in the scale at homologous (corresponding) points on the sphere and projection, referred to as distortion. The knowledge of the
types, magnitudes and distribution of distortion on a
projection is of paramount importance in understanding
the relationships between information on a map and the
real world objects being represented.

0-7803-6359-O/OO/$lO.OOQ 2000 IEEE

INTERACTIVE CARTOGRAPHY

The Interactive Cartography program presented in this

paper allows users to interactively create different map
projections by selecting and manipulating different developable surfaces such as cones, cylinders, and planes.
It is part of a larger program for studying distortions in
map projections [3]. It is by no means the first system to
implement interactivity and animation of map projection parameters and distortion diagrams. Geocart (from
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Figure 1: Three different types of developable surfaces

used in map projections: (A) cylindrical, (B) conic, (C)
planar.

Terra Data Inc.) is a popular commercial product that

allows mapping with an impressive choice of map projections. Users can interactively display many visual
tools including Tissot indicatrix diagrams, great circles,
rhumb lines, and scale distortion parameters. An original contribution of the Interactive Cartography system
with respect to Geocart is the more direct level of interactivity. Our system allows the user to manipulate and
see changes in the globe and the projected map in real
time, whereas the animations in Geocart are scripted
(predefined by the user). In addition, the use of explicitly visualized developable shapes offer immediate cues
to the user of the origin of the projection. This is especially useful to the novice cartographer.

Figure 2: Top: Main graphical user interface for the

Interactive Cartography program. The Globe Window
shows that a cylindrical developable surface has been
selected. Bottom: The Projection Window displays
the map projection corresponding to the settings in the
Globe Window.

The user is initially presented with an image of a

globe consisting of the standard graticule and world
coastline data. Through the use of mouse controls, the
user is able to rotate the globe along the polar axis and
an equatorial axis. The user can choose to view one of
three developable geometric shapes in the Globe Window: a cylinder, cone, or plane (Top half of Fig. 2).
Each of these represents a class of map projections that
can be viewed simultaneously in a separate Projection
Window (Bottom half of Fig. 2). Once a geometric
shape has been chosen, a projection is shown in the Projection Window. The projection corresponds to the type
and orientation of the geometric shape. The geometric
shapes can be independently manipulated through rotation. Rotating the shape or the globe in the Globe Window, changes the projection in the Projection Window
appropriately. Currently, five different standard projections are supported: Mercator and Transverse Mercator (cylindrical), Polyconic and Lambert Conformal
(conic), and Polar Stereographic (planar). Figure 3
and Figure 4 shows the Globe Windows and Projection
Windows for a conic and planar developable surface respectively.

IMPLEMENTATION

There are several components to this Interactive Cartography program. The heart of the program is a C library of routines for converting spherical latitude and
longitude coordinates to and from different map projections. This library is called the General Cartographic
Transformation Package (GCTP) and is available from
the USGS [4]. What makes the GCTP user friendly and
accessible to students learning cartography (and who
may not be versed in computer programming) is the
graphical user interface of the Interactive Cartography
program. It provides an intuitive point and click interface to the functionality provided by the GCTP. The Interactive Cartography system is written in C++, where
each object on the screen is represented by a class. This
provides a modularity that allows objects to easily be
added to or removed from the system. Users can choose
the objects to be displayed, allowing for customization.
For instance, the user can choose to hide the coastline
data, allowing an unobstructed view of the graticule.
This might be beneficial in studying graticule patterns
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Figure 3: Conic developable surface and corresponding

projection.

Figure 4: Planar developable surface and corresponding projection.

in different projections.
lbo components help make the program particularly
portable to most computers these days. First, is the use
of OpenGL for graphics rendering. OpenGL is an industry wide standard for 3D graphics and is supported
by most graphicdvideo cards today. Second, is the use
of FLTK (www.fltk.org)for the graphical user interface
itself. Together, these two have allowed us to quickly
port the program to a number of platforms including
Sun, SGI, and PCs running different flavors of Unix
and Windows operating systems.

References
[ 13 John P. Snyder and Philip M.Voxland. An album
of map projections. Technical Report 1453, United

States Geological Survey, 1989. 249pp.

[2] Arthur H. Robinson. Choosing a world map .attributes, distortions, classes, aspects. American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, Falls
Church, VA, 1988. 15pp.
[3] Jeffrey Brainerd and Alex Pang.
Floating
ring: A new tool for visualizing distortion
in map projections.
In E-E. Wolter and
N.M. Patrikalakis, editors, Proceedings Computer Graphics International, pages 466
480. IEEE Computer Society, June 1998.
www.cse.ucsc.edu/research/avis/map. html.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Jeff Brainerd wrote the original version of this software. Eric Schmitt ported the software to multiple
platforms, changed the user interface from Xforms to
FLTK, and fixed some earlier bugs. Krishna Roskin
provided help with FLTK. We would like to thank the
members of the Advanced Visualization and Interactive Systems (AVIS) laboratory at Santa Cruz for their
feedback and suggestions. This project is supported in
part by DAFWA &rant N66001-97-8900, NASA grant
NCC2-5281, and LLNL Agreement No. B347879 under DOE Contract No. W-7405-ENG-48.

[4] United States Geologic Survey.

General cartographic transformation package, 1998. edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/programs/sddm/lasdist/contrib.

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