Flattening the earth

What Hacker News says

1. defrostSep 2026
   Yorro Yorro: Everything Standing Up Alive - David Mowaljarlai

   Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections - John P. Snyder

   Fallout: Hedley Marston and the atomic bomb tests in Australia - Roger Cross

   A Fortunate Life - A.B. Facey

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2. llopisdonFeb 2025
   Thanks!

   The app currently renders aircraft and maps on a flat plane using latitude, longitude, and altitude, via the sphericalmercator library:

   https://github.com/mapbox/sphericalmercator

   My understanding is that the ADS-B latitude and longitude are based on the WGS 84 coordinate system, which accounts for the Earth's curvature, but the app itself doesn't project these coordinates onto a curved surface.

   I'd appreciate suggestions from HN users with map projection expertise on how to accomplish this. I'm also interested in learning more.

   One of my next projects is to get a better understanding of GIS coordinate reference systems in order to be able to create 3d globle renderings of the data. I purchased the following two books to better understand map projection implementation:

   3D Engine Design for Virtual Globes by Patrick Cozzi and Kevin Ring

   Flattening the Earth by John P. Snyder

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3. defrostSep 2023
   What makes a map "good" is specifically tied to what do you need the map for?

   Some distort angles, some distort areas, some are intentionally distorted to represent data while maintaining topology.

   Synder is one of several definitive "the map guy" candidates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Snyder

   Chatty, detailed, authorative: Flattening the earth: two thousand years of map projections. Snyder, John P. (1993) https://annas-archive.org/isbn/9780226767475

       To call Flattening the Earth a detailed history of map projections is akin to calling a dictionary a list of words.
   
       Flattening the Earth is almost certainly the most exhaustive, detail packed, well written, and well illustrated compendium of information on the origin and use of map projections ever published.
   

   ( ~ review https://cartographicperspectives.org/index.php/journal/artic... )

   Technical: Map projections: A working manual https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/pp1395

   Free USGS download (397 pages): https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1395/report.pdf

   Properties & Uses of Selected Map Projections Wall Chart: https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1395/plate-1.pdf

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4. bhickeyMay 2013
   Along these lines, I'd recommend the book Flattening the Earth by John P. Snyder.
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5. defrostJan 2024
   If it's the history of surveying land for land use then it starts in documented history with the Egyptians marking out growing land that floods every year and was restaked with string and sight from above the flood level monuments.

   If it's cartography, the two were intertwined (with differences).

   Before WGS84 there were tens of state level ellipsoids and hundreds of global datums - with more than a few readjustments on the way to global unification.

   One book, of many on the cartography side is

   Flattening the Earth Two Thousand Years of Map Projections - John P. Snyder

   https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo363285...

   who formulated the sinusoidal US space projection seen in war room move scenes showing global maps with S tracks across them for satellite paths.

   On the dull and technical side (a lot of truncated Taylor series and a couple of projections using <gasp!> complex numbers) see:

   Map projections: A working manual - also Snyder (free download for PDF & wallchart)

   https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/pp1395

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