The State Plane Coordinate System (SPCS)
The State Plane Coordinate System divides the United States into 124 zones to locate any point with a high level of accuracy (one part in 10,000).
Maps & Cartography
Map Distortion with Tissot’s Indicatrix
Map distortion is best understood looking at Tissot’s indicatrix. It contains circles and shows how map projections distort shape, size and distances.
Why Are Rhumb Lines (Loxodromes) a Constant Track Direction?
Rhumb lines (or loxodrome) have constant bearings and cross all meridians at the same angle. They are not the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere
How to Create Flow Maps with Directional Lines
Cartographers use lines to show the movement of phenomenon in flow maps. To show the magnitude, they change the width of flow lines.
Cartogram Maps: Data Visualization with Exaggeration
Cartogram maps distorts reality to convey information. It accomplishes this by resizing and exaggerating any variable using a polygons geometry.
What is a Voronoi Diagram?
In a Voronoi Diagram, when you take a point in any given Thiessen polygon, it indicates that it’s closer to that generating point than to any other.
Choropleth Maps – A Guide to Data Classification
Equal intervals, quantile, natural breaks, pretty breaks- data classification methods generate different choropleth maps. We explain the types of maps here.
Azimuthal Projection: Orthographic, Stereographic and Gnomonic
The azimuthal projection plots the surface of Earth using a flat plane. For example, common azimuthal projections are gnomonic, stereographic & orthographic
Equal Area Projection Maps in Cartography
The equal area projection retains the relative size of area throughout a map. So that means at any given region, it keeps the true size and area of features.
How Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Works
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) segments the Earth into 60 zones (each UTM zone is 6°) and projects each zone with an upright cylinder of its own.