6/30/2017

What is a Map? Cartography

• study and practice of making maps
• Combination of science, aesthetics, and
technique
• Language which in which reality can be
• a generalised description of the reality
• regarded as a static geographical database printed on paper, where, in modeled in ways to communicate spatial
most cases, points, lines and polygons are used to represent different information effectively
objects.
• The real world is three-dimensional but often it could be represented
on two-dimensional maps, making the map a two-dimensional model of
the reality.
• The third dimension!!!!
– iso-lines or contour or different colours for different elevations.

Major problems in Cartography A brief history

• Political boundaries and traits
• Represent topography in paper
– Map Projection
• Remove irrelevant details of the world
– Generalisation
• Reduce complexities of the world
– Generalisation
• To deliver the correct message to the audience
– Map Design

1
 6/30/2017

The Parts of a Map: Map Elements Map Types

• Reference maps, which are more generalised maps.

• Thematic maps, which are maps showing a particular field of interest.
• Special maps, which can be described as maps covering a special field of
cartography.

• The world is complex…

• The number of information layers that can be derived from an
area is virtually indefinite
• since almost everything can be allocated to a certain
position.
• Thematic layers
• According to specific
problem or object of
interest or particular
Thematic maps are the most common
map type that we are working with in profession
the field of GIS • GIS-map is dynamic
• user controls what to display
or use in the analysis.
• This is a major advantage of
GIS compared to traditional
paper maps.

2
 6/30/2017

How to simplify then..? Projections and Coordinate

• River would be straightened system
out
• reality is divided into
different thematic map
layers to decrease the
number of objects
presented in a single layer
• Separate road from land
cover, population,
hydrology, vegetation etc.
to represent only
transportation map

What to include on the map is a decision made by the map

producer

Sphere’s Coordinated Measurement

system
• To locate something on this
sphere, we need some kind
of co-ordinate system,
– preferably with an x- and a y-
axis, perpendicular to each
other.
– Is it possible?
– the earth is round.
• The earth is not really round but it’s nearly round. – No right angles

• When we want to make a map

• Meridians and parallels
– we have to approximate the earth into some sort of • The largest parallel is the equator,
generalised shape • others are decreasing in length the further north or south they are.
– one of the possibilities is to approximate it into a sphere. • The meridians on the other hand, will always meet at the poles
• The distance between the meridians will be quite big at the equator and
– This approximation is commonly used for very general maps. increasingly narrow the further they move towards the poles.

3
 6/30/2017

You can either have

correct areas, angles or,
along a few lines, length
and the choice depends on
the purpose of the map.
It’s impossible to have all
three properties correct
on one map but you can,
to some extent, combine
two of them.
You can however never
combine correct areas and
The surface of a sphere can never become angles in the same map.
completely reproduced on a flat surface, but will A map projection that
always be distorted. preserves correct areas
(according to scale) is
When making a map, you must choose what called an equal area
properties you want to have correctly described projection and a
on the expense of others, i.e. you have to make a projection preserving
compromise that best suit your application. angels is called a
conformal projection

• Orthographic projection: • The stereographic projections

• To project something with the put the imagined light source
orthographic projection, you on the Earth surface, on the
must think of the imagined light opposite side of the area that
source as being indefinitely far is going to be projected.
away from the earth.
• When you then illuminate the • This means that the light
earth, the beams of light will beams will no longer be
strike the earth as parallels. parallel since they are
• The earth will then be projected diverging from the source of
on the flat surface according to light.
where each of the light beams
touches the earth. • This causes a quite different
• Each of these beams can just image of our surface than the
touch the earth at one single orthographic projection.
point.

4
 6/30/2017

• The gnomic (or

gnomonic) projection
puts the source of light
at the centre of the
Earth, which causes the
light beams to strike the
Earths surface almost at
right angle.
• The errors will be rather
large along the borders
of the map.

This image cannot currently be displayed.

Conic projections use a projection surface
“wrapped” as a cone around the Earth. It
touches the earth’s surface along a line
such as a parallel.
Regions in the map that are near this line
become more accurate than the areas
further away from it.
The cone does not have to be placed over
one of the poles, but can be put anywhere.
It is also possible to let the cone “sink” into
the sphere, resulting in two lines touching
the surface.

In azimuthal projections, a flat projection surface touches the

sphere only at one single point. In the example above it touches
the North Pole but it could be anywhere on the earth’s surface.
They are most accurate in the centre of the image and become
more and more distorted near the edges.

5
 6/30/2017

To locate something on this sphere,

In a cylindrical projection the
projection surface is wrapped as we need some kind of co-ordinate
a cylinder “around” the Earth. system, preferably with an x- and a
In the projection above, called a
y-axis, perpendicular to each other.
normal cylindrical projection, the
cylinder is vertical or standing However, this is impossible since
and touches the “sphere” along the earth is round. This means that
the equator where distortions
the co-ordinate system that we use
are at a minimum.
Distortions increase as you move on the sphere could never be right
away from the equator. angled. Instead it’s based on
meridians and parallels
A cylindrical projection surface is very commonly
used for national and international maps. The
main advantage is that it gives correct areas
along the line where it touches the sphere, which When we want to make a map, we have to approximate the earth into
makes it useful for area measurements.
One of the most common cylindrical projections
some sort of generalised shape, and one of the possibilities is to
is the Mercator projection, which is often used approximate it into a sphere. This approximation is commonly used for
for world maps. In this map areas are most very general maps.
correct along the equator but become greatly
deformed further north or south

The shape of the earth is more commonly approximated as an ellipse. The flattening of the earth at the poles is measured by using the
This is also a generalised model since the Earth is neither a sphere nor lengths of the semi-major and the semi-minor axes. The semi-major
an ellipse. Even if the ellipse approximation is truer than the sphere, it axis is the longest one and stretches from the earths centre to the
is not perfect. The true Earth is irregular. equator and the semi-minor is the shorter axis and stretches from
the earths centre to the poles.

6
 6/30/2017

Latitude and Longitude

Latitudes
and
longitudes
are angles.

Both use the center of the earth as the vertex, but they use a different
These different ellipse approximations, with slightly different grades of flattening, zero reference.
are the result of different cartographers working in different parts of the world
during the last 100-200 years. Maps based on different ellipsoids result in
geometrically slightly different maps.
The ellipsoid called WGS84 is different from the others in the respect that it is
defined to get a best possible estimation for the whole globe, while the others have
been defined to be a best approximation for different regions. More countries are
today converting their coordinate systems to these global ellipsoids. 26

Latitude Latitude--Equator
• Latitude gives the location of a place on the  The Equator is an imaginary circle drawn around the planet at a
Earth north or south of the Equator. distance halfway between the poles.
• Latitude is an angular measurement in degrees  The equator divides
(marked with °) ranging from 0° at the Equator to the planet into a
90° at the poles (90° N for the North Pole or 90° S Northern Hemisphere
for the South Pole) and a Southern
Hemisphere.
The earth’s radius is approximately 6356800 m  The latitude of the
around the poles. equator is, by
Km 2 * PI * 6356800
definition, 0°.
= = 110.947 km/degree
Degree 360 degrees

Each degree of latitude  111km

27 28

7
 6/30/2017

Latitude--cont. Longitude
Longitude describes the location of a
Four lines of latitude are named because of the role they play in place on earth east or west of a north-
south line called the Prime Meridian.
the geometrical relationship with the Earth and the Sun.
– Longitude is given as an angular
measurement ranging from 0° at the
– Arctic Circle — 66° 33′ 39″ N
Prime Meridian to +180° eastward and
– Tropic of Cancer — 23° 26′ 22″ N 180° westward.
– Tropic of Capricorn — 23° 26′ 22″ S – In 1884, the International Meridian
– Antarctic Circle — 66° 33′ 39″ S Conference adopted the Greenwich
meridian as the universal prime meridian
or zero point of longitude.

29 30

Longitude--cont. Longitude--cont.
• There is an important difference between latitude Latitude Miles/deg.
The radius of the earth at and longitude. ( o)
• The circumference of the earth declines as the
the equator is latitude increase away from the equator.
0 69.17
10 68.13
approximately 6371000m. • This means the km per degree of longitude changes
20 65.03
with the latitude.
Miles 2 * PI * 6371000 This makes determining the distance between two 30 59.95
= = 111.194 km •
Degree 360 degrees Degree points identified by longitude more difficult. 40 53.06
50 44.55

Each degree of longitude  111km 60 34.67

70 23.73
80 12.05

31 32

8
 6/30/2017

The co-ordinate system for the ellipsoid

and spheres are quite similar. To
determine a position on the ellipsoid
we use the terms longitude and
latitude. Longitudes are positions along
the “x dimension” (east/west).
Locations with the same longitude
value form a meridian which stretches
between the north and south poles
(e.g. 30° East). The distances for the
longitudes are measured from
Greenwich outside London where the
longitude is 0°. Longitudes are positive
to the East and negative to the West.
Not so long ago, different countries
Latitudes are measures of the distance had different origins for their
from the equator in north/south direction. longitudes but today Greenwich is by
All positions with the same latitude value far most common.
form a parallel, e.g. 10° South. Latitudes
are positive on the northern hemisphere
and negative on the southern side of the
equator.
Normally, in GIS, we use decimal degrees.

A special notion is important for

the description of elevation Mercator Projection
values in maps, since these can
be referred to either the • A Mercator projection is a
ellipsoid or the geoid. This is a ‘pseudocylindrical’ conformal
projection (it preserves shape).
surface that coincides with the
mean sea level and its imagined
extension under land surfaces. • Points on the earth are transferred, on
an angle from the center of the earth,
The geoid is more or less the to the surface of the cylinder.
true surface of the earth. This
approximation also takes the
• What you often see on poster-size
gravity, which is different in maps of the world is an equatorial
different parts of the world, into Mercator projection that has relatively
account. Depending on the little distortion along the equator, but
surface we are referring to, we quite a bit of distortion toward the
poles.
get different elevation values at
the same altitude.
We can measure elevations as the height above sea level (H), which is the same
as the height above the geoid, as the ellipsoid height (h), which is the height
above the ellipsoid, or as the geoid height (N), which is the geoid’s height above
the ellipsoid. It is most common in maps to refer the elevation as the height
36
above sea level (H).

9
 6/30/2017

Transverse Mercator
Mercator Projection-cont. Projection
• Transverse Mercator
• In this illustration it can projection rotates the
be seen the the projected earth 90 degrees with in
distance is greater than
the earth distance. the cylinder.
• Within a few latitudes of • In this projection a small
the equator the distortion increases in longitude are
is very small, but the relatively undistorted.
distortion increases as
latitude increases.

37 38

UTM Zones
Transverse Mercator Projection
• This illustration shows
that when transverse The world is divided into 60
Mercator is used, zones of latitude, each 6o wide
narrow vertical slices of at the equator, that extend from
the earth have little
distortion. 84o N to 80o s.

These zones begin at 180o longitude and

are numbered consecutively eastward.

39 40

10
 6/30/2017

UTM Zones--cont. UTM--cont.

• The conterminous United • The UTM system uses a different grid for the polar regions.
States is covered by 10 • These areas are covered by a different conformal projection
UTM grid zones. called the Polar Stereographic.
• In the Northern • Since compass directions have little meaning at the poles, one
Hemisphere each zone's direction on the grid is arbitrarily designated "north-south" and
northing coordinate begins the other "east-west" regardless of the actual compass direction.
at the equator as 0,000,000 • The UTM coordinates are called "false northing" and "false
and is numbered north in easting.”
meters.

The easting coordinates are measured from an artificial reference

line drawn perpendicular to the equator and centered in the zone at
the equator.

41 42

Using Location Determining

Information UTM Zone
Each system has its advantages and disadvantages. • Treat west longitude as negative and east as positive.
• Add 180 degrees; this converts the longitude to a number
Latitude and longitude UTM between zero and 360 degrees.
Advantages • Divide by 6 and round up to the next higher number.
Advantages • Example:
• With the proper instruments, a
person can determine their
Best method for determining – The location of the intersection of Hall of Fame and Virginia on
position at the site without using distances between two points. OSU campus is 56 7 23.71 N and 97 05 16.079 W.
GPS.
• Used by most maps
-97.088 + 180 = 82.912

Disadvantages Disadvantages 82.192

= 13.8 = 14
• Difficult to determine Not as useful for finding a location. 6
distances between two or
more points.

43 44

11
 6/30/2017

Determining a UTM Grid Value for a Map Point Determining a UTM Grid Value for a
• The UTM grid is shown on all
quadrangle maps prepared by
Map Point--cont.
• To use the UTM grid, you can place
the U.S. Geological Survey a transparent grid overlay on the
(USGS). map to subdivide the grid, or you
• On 7.5-minute quadrangle can draw lines on the map
maps (1:24,000 and 1:25,000 connecting corresponding ticks on
scale) and 15-minute opposite edges.
quadrangle maps (1:50,000,
1:62,500, and standard- • The distances can be measured in
edition 1:63,360 scales), the meters at the map scale between
UTM grid lines are indicated at any map point and the nearest grid
intervals of 1,000 meters, lines to the south and west.
either by blue ticks in the • The northing of the point is the
margins of the map or with full value of the nearest grid line south
grid lines.
of it plus its distance north of that
• The 1,000-meter value of the line; its easting is the value of the
ticks is shown for every tick or nearest grid line west of it plus its
grid line. distance east of that line.
http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html

45 46

Determining Distance Using UTM UTM Example--cont.

• Subtracting the easting proved
the length of the horizontal
• In the illustration the side: 208,000 meters.
UTM coordinates for • Subtracting the northing proves
the length of the vertical side:
two points are given. 535,000 meters.
• The distance can be • The distance between the two
points is:
determined using
Pythagorean Distance = 535,0002  208,0002

Theorem because = 574011.32... or 574, 000 meters

UTM is a grid system.
Note: this is the plane distance. To find surface distance a
curve equation must be used.

47 48

12
 6/30/2017

Instead of a “standing”, vertical

cylinder, we here have a “lying”,
or transverse
cylinder that gives a good fit to
the Earth model in a north-south
direction. The distortions increase
east and west away from the line
of tangency, which in this case is a
meridian. These kinds of
cylindrical projections are
therefore suitable for areas that
extended in a north/south
direction.

In the example above, we would have a good map in central Africa, central Europe Because of the possibility to turn the transverse cylinder, the Earth
and the Scandinavian countries while the map would be really bad in Japan or
North/South America. However, if we turn this cylinder so it touches the “sphere” has been divided into 60 different zones.
along another meridian, we could then have a much better map for South America These correspond to 60 different directions of this cylinder, 6 degrees
or Japan. apart. Most maps covering larger areas now days are using these
projections.

In most GIS software now days We can describe a

there is some sort of point’s location either in
transformation tool that helps a two-dimensional
the user change map
coordinate system, using
projection.
Still, making maps perfectly x- and y-coordinates or
compatible to each other in a three-dimensional
remains a major difficulty in system taking the
GIS today. elevation into account.
It sometimes even happens
Normally, when working
that the user does not know
what kind of map projections with GIS, we are using
the different maps he or she the two-dimensional
works with originate from. ones.
Depending on the maps and the software, this will
We then have to identify the When transforming the round surface into
work more or less well. It is also a very time a flat map we still need some kind of co-
same spatial objects in the
consuming operation, which might induce errors.
maps to be fitted, and then let ordinate system (preferably right angled) to
the computer empirically locate an object on the map.
transform one map to another.

13
 6/30/2017

If we are approximating the Earth

using an ellipsoid it does not fit The coordinate systems are often
exactly into the Earths surface. This defined so that they avoid negative
means that we need some sort of
description of how the true land
co-ordinate values. The standard
surface is related to the used origins are the Greenwich and the
ellipsoid. We have to move the Equator, but often the origin of a
ellipsoid in all three-dimensions to specific reference system is put
make it fit our surface as good as outside a country or the area of
possible. To do this we use a
reference system.
interest. If the Greenwich origin,
for example, is moved further east,
we call this false easting and if the
A reference system is defined by a number of points whose positions are
defined both on the ellipsoid and on the land surface. The relation between
Equator is moved further north we
the coordinates tells us about the rotation in three dimensions. These call it false northing. By changing
reference systems differ from one country to another. We have to be aware of the origin we avoid the negative
the different ellipsoids, projections, co-ordinate systems and reference numbers in our co-ordinate
systems to be able to handle and solve problems related to the use of different system.
map data in a GIS.

Parameters for MUTM using EVEREST

ADJUSTMENT 1937 coordinate system
• PROJCS ["Everest_Adj_1937_Transverse_Mercator",
• GEOGCS ["GCS_Everest_Adj_1937",
• DATUM ["D_Everest_Adj_1937",
• SPHEROID ["Everest_Adjustment_1937",6377276.345,300.8017]],
• PRIMEM ["Greenwich",0.0]
• UNIT ["Degree",0.0174532925199433]],
• PROJECTION ["Transverse_Mercator"],
• PARAMETERS
– ["False_Easting",500000.0]
– ["False_Northing",0.0],
– ["Central_Meridian",84.0],
Something that is often confusing is that the x- and y-axes can be – ["Scale_Factor",0.9999],
reversed, depending if they originate from a geodetic or – ["Latitude_Of_Origin",0.0],
mathematical point of view. Most GIS use the mathematical way of – ["Meter",1.0]]
expressing the co-ordinates while some geographical data can be
expressed in the opposite way (x axis as north-south direction and y
axis as east-west direction).

14
 6/30/2017

Parameters for MUTM using EVEREST 1830 PARAMETERS FOR UTM

• PROJECTION SYSTEM "MUTM“ • PROJECTION SYSTEM"UTM“
• GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATE SYSTEM ["GCS_Everest_1830“ • GEOGCS ["GCS_WGS_1984“
• DATUM ["D_Everest_1830“ • DATUM
["D_WGS_1984",SPHEROID["WGS_1984",6378137,298.2572235
• SPHEROID ["Everest_1830",6377299.36,300.8017]] 63]]
• PRIMEM ["Greenwich",0.0] • PRIMEM["Greenwich",0]
• UNIT ["Degree",0.0174532925199433]] • UNIT["Degree",0.017453292519943295]]
• PROJECTION ["Transverse_Mercator"]
• PROJECTION ["Transverse_Mercator"] • PARAMETERS
• PARAMETERS – ["False_Easting",500000.0]
– ["False_Easting",500000.0] – ["False_Northing",0.0]
– ["False_Northing",0.0] – ["Central_Meridian",84.0]
– ["Scale_Factor",0.9996]
– ["Central_Meridian",87.0]
– ["Latitude_Of_Origin",0.0]
– ["Scale_Factor",0.9999] • UNIT["Meter",1.0]]
– ["Latitude_Of_Origin",0.0]
• UNIT ["Meter",1.0]]

Transformation Parameters
• From WGS84 to Everest1830
– Method = MOLODENSKY
– X-axis translation =-282meters
– Y-axis translation = -726 meters
– Z-Axis translation = -254
• From WGS84 to Everest_adj_1937
– Method =molodensky
– X-axis translation =-293.17meters
– Y-axis translation = -726.18 meters
– Z-Axis translation = -245.36
• From WGS84 to Nepal Nagarkot
– Method = MOLODENSKY
– X-axis translation =-296.207meters
– Y-axis translation = -737.545 meters
– Z-Axis translation = -273.001
• The opposite transformation is done by avoiding minus sign before the values

15