Web Sites for Projections

As collected and assessed by FRST 122T students

URL: http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/mapproj/mapproj_f.html

Value: 8.5 It’s alright.

Description: The information provided about cylinder, conic, and azimuthal projections are very informative. With many different types of cylinder, conic, azimuthal and other projections, that you are able to view makes the ideas easier to understand. Actual projections of the earths surface are at the end of each little topic. Also it has concept diagrams on projections from a sphere to cylinders, cones, and planes. The layout of the site is so basic and easy to use because all of the information is on one scroll list. And all the pictures and more details are a mouse click on the underlined topic. For the basic understanding of how the projections work and what they look like this web site is not bad.

URL: http://www.geosphere.com/home.htm

Value: 9.9 If you haven’t seen this site go look at it right now!

Description: This is a web site for projections of the world that you can set your watch to. The images shown on this site are second to none. It brings together satellite images map projections and data in a way that is easy to read, view, and understand. It has state of the art programming: animated visualizations, Global geography, three-dimensional electronic global information display system that is the best a computer can do. With this new type of mapping display all other projections are basically worthless. This really is an absolute master piece of what the world looks like. The way the web site is set up is easy to find your way around, downloading is fast and the over all presentation of the layout is immaculate.

URL: http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/TOC/cartTOC.html

Value: 8.9 The best for information.

Description: There is a good opening page with only two options making it easier to find what your looking for. There are very easy to follow topics like introduction to basic definitions and concepts about the earth and maps, fitting maps to purpose and useful map properties, the math of cartography, and all the main projection groups. Also there is a section on dealing with distortion. All have a very useful information on projections in general and how they are created and used to our benefit. The layout is in a straight forward manner that even the most computer illiterate person could navigate and find your way back to. Downloading for some of the stuff is incredibly slow, but the information on this site is probably the most specific and accurate site on projections.

URL: http://gislounge.com

Value: 6/10

Description: This site seems to have a grasp on web based advertisement because the site continually popped up during the search for GIS projections. http://gislounge.com did not have extremely clear navigation, for map projections, once it was started. To be fair, it did seem to have a huge wealth of information. The site’s information on projection actually lead to another site, http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa031599.htm. GIS Lounge has a large selection and level of topics: Cartography, GIS Communities, Data, Events, Fun with GIS, Showcases, Remote sensing, and a large link library. http://gislounge.com’s web tutorial on map information comes from the Yale University web site, http://statlab.stat.yale.edu/help/doco/mapinfo.jsp, that uses MAPINFO to assist it’s explanation.

URL: http://www.forestry.umt.edu/academics/courses/FOR503/Part4.htm#Questions

Value: 9/10

Description: Web site 2 was prepared by Hans Zuuring, Missoula, Montana, USA, of the college of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana. Hans’s site started out strong and was derived specifically to teach GIS related topics. It is a non-stop page of GIS projection information that is excellent for understanding this topic. A “topic index” also leads the surfer specific titles in the reference. This site was awarded .

For ease of accesibility, quality of information and because there is no wait-time while you jump from site to site I would have to say this site is my favorite, nice and simple. The only downside, which unfortulently is large, is that this site doesn’t have clear links to other GIS topics.

URL: UNIT 27 - MAP PROJECTIONS

Value: 8/10

Description: It is another University base publication from Vicki Chmill, University of California, Santa Barbara. This was another very clear site that also had information that supplements its contents. http://www.geog.ubc.ca/courses/klink/gis.notes/ncgia/u27.html#SEC27.1 was clear and fairly simple to navigate. It’s only problem is that it may have a few too many quick answers and doesn’t give much for examples. I did like that a click on the title sent you to “The National Center for Geographic Information Analysis (NCGIA)” This site has another good archive of valuable GIS related information.

URL: http://geoweb.cslm.hu/vhost/geoinfo/events/SSS/presentations/sss_g1/sld003.htm

Value: 9/10

Description: This web site consists of 17 slides. I like the way it is set up because you can only go forwards or backwards and if you begin with the first slide the information is very easy to understand (especially when each slide has a subject of its own). The first two slides is introduction the third to seventieth is about the basics projection and how GIS data is stored using latitudes and longitude. The sixth and seventh slide introduces projection systems and how they apply to different locations on the globe. The eighth to eleventh slide explains the UTM System in detail. The slides following this become more in depth, discussing way to minimize distortion though various projection systems.

URL: http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/mapproj/mapproj.html

Value: 8/10

Description: This site is very easy to navigate through and provides many visual links which contain examples for every type of projection discussed on the web site. The web site begins with a well-defined description of what projection is and how it affects certain properties of the projected map. This site also defines the four categories the map projection fall under and briefly explains in layman terms how each of them work. After the Introduction each of the four categories are broken down into their groups where many different types of projections belonging to each category are discussed and displayed via the hotlink.

URL: http://www.geography.hunter.cuny.edu/mp/mpbasics.html

Value: 7/10

Description: The topics in this web site are much the same as the previous two. However, this web site offers a link to the history of mapping and map projection. This history is almost irrelevant to our course but the information presented gives us and idea of the complexity of map projections and how long we as a human race have been working on it. Navigation on this web site is very as well, all of the topic have their own hotlink and views each subject is as easy as clicking the mouse. One thing in particular I like about this web site is the section on choosing projection. In this section the author put strong emphasis on choosing the right projection for minimal distortion.