Show the countries in your world-maps?

[RogerOwens]

daan--

Your world-maps show the vegetation, and that's certainly of interest. But the countries are of practical interest too.

So, shouldn't the world-maps show the country-boundaries, maybe in a color or shade different from that of the graticule?

Michael Ossipoff

[daan]

The imagery I typically use is NASA’S Blue Marble Next Generation satellite composite, with two modifications: I have drastically lightened the seas (only); and I have combined the summers of the northern and southern hemispheres rather than using the same month’s imagery everywhere.

Satellite imagery is particularly bad for overlaying political boundaries onto. If I wanted political boundaries, I’d start with something else as a base map.

— daan

[RogerOwens]

Ok, understood. But what if the country-boundaries were in white. Wouldn't that contrast with most of the vegetation-colors, which are mostly dark?

In fact, if necessary, couldn't the country-boundaries switch to a different color or shade, where needed, to contrast with a particular background? I've noticed that contrast-technique used for some movie-subtitles, for example.

Michael Ossipoff

[daan]

Sure, there are ways to make it less awful, but none to make it “good”, and, ultimately, I’m just not that interested in political boundaries. They would convey nothing that I intend to convey when I make a map without them. Occasionally I make a geophysical map that includes boundaries if I need them, but never on satellite imagery.

— daan

[RogerOwens]

Ok, I understand that political boundaries aren't very compatible with the multi-shade satellite-imagery, and that one interferes with the other.

You said:

I’m just not that interested in political boundaries."

I can relate to that, because societal matters are a hopeless lost cause, best ignored and disregarded. Man's world isn't of interest. Nature's world is worthwhile and of interest.

But, though a satellite-image, vegetation-map, or climate-map gives information by which we could choose where we'd like to be, it remains true, just as a practical matter, that which country it is still has a lot to do with whether we'd like to be there. That, as just a practical matter, is true however little we're interested in man and his societal world.

Michael Ossipoff

[daan]

But, though a satellite-image, vegetation-map, or climate-map gives information by which we could choose where we'd like to be, it remains true, just as a practical matter, that which country it is still has a lot to do with whether we'd like to be there. That, as just a practical matter, is true however little we're interested in man and his societal world.

To reiterate and elaborate, the maps I make and show here are about the projection, not about human politics. Iʼm not interested in cluttering them up with yet more symbology. Grounding the representation in Earth imagery helps grasp the distortions involved and how theyʼre distributed, in my opinion, so I make that concession rather than simplifying all the way down to just a graticule.

You might be taking part of what I wrote too literally and ignoring the other part. I make maps having political boundaries when they are important to the mapʼs narrative. I do not agree that political boundaries are important in dialog about projections.

— daan

[RogerOwens]

I do not agree that political boundaries are important in dialog about projections.

Of course. I just meant that you've got lots of maps posted around the Internet, and they could be more than just demonstrations of a projection.

Aside from the maps' usefulness in showing the difference between different projections, they could have the additional use of showing in what countries the vegetation-patterns exist.

Sure, your maps show the shapes and sizes of the continents, and thereby show what the projection does to those things. But wouldn't they tell even more about those distortions if they showed what the projection does to the sizes and shapes of the countries too? What would be wrong with, additionally, showing that effect of the projection? ...providing more information about what a projection does to shapes and sizes?

That would provide more information about what the map does to shapes and sizes. I like the tissot-ellipse demonstration of that, but also showing it by the distortions to country-boundaries, in addition to continents, would put in a subjective interest and notice framework that the tissot-ellipses don't address. People likely have more of a feel for the distortions of familiar country-shapes, an emotional response that is important in their evaluation of a map's distortions, in terms of what those distortions actually do to familiar shapes.

2018-W16-2
Michael Ossipoff

[daan]

I do not agree that political boundaries are important in dialog about projections.

Of course. I just meant that you've got lots of maps posted around the Internet, and they could be more than just demonstrations of a projection.

All of those maps “posted around the Internet” were posted by other people except the ones residing on Wikimedia Commons. I made those images available freely to the public via the Commons, and I produced them specifically to illustrate projection traits in the various Wikipedia map projection article. Sure, people use them for all kinds of things, which is great. If they want to superpose national borders onto the imagery, more power to them, though they probably should use something else as a base map for that purpose.

I doubt vegetation cares what country itʼs in, and the purpose is not to show “vegetation” anyway. The purpose is to render satellite imagery in a standardized format so the people all over the world can compare and contrast the projections that they are viewing, anchored on a world they are familiar with. Satellite imagery doesn’t show borders, and in a purely raster format, borders donʼt respond well to projection anyway because artificial lines should be constant in width, not distorted by the projection.

What you propose sounds like a design mess to me, which is why I donʼt do it. Maps should have clear narratives.

— daan