A New Way To Flatten The Earth

MPhil Thesis Defence


Title: "A New Way To Flatten The Earth"

By

Miss Zhaohua LI


Abstract

Projecting the Earth on a flat map is one of the most important ways 
people use to learn about the planet. Throughout history, a large variety 
of world maps have been designed for different purposes, such as to learn 
about countries or to navigate a long voyage. However, such maps can never 
be perfect due to the contradictory properties. Approaches have been 
proposed in order to reduce distortion, but cartographers have not yet 
considered how to produce a continuous projection which can best preserve 
important regions. In this thesis, we design and implement two systems, 
one automatic and one interactive, to produce projections that can 
preserve selective regions better without making the map discontinuous. 
The systems allow users to highlight their preference in making a useful 
map tailored to them. Our tools can generate a map according to these 
settings. We also conducted a user study to evaluate our systems and 
compare our results with existing maps.


Date:			Thursday, 21 August 2014

Time:			2:00pm - 4:00pm

Venue:			Room 4483
 			Lifts 25/26

Committee Members:	Dr. Pedro Sander (Supervisor)
 			Prof. Chiew-Lan Tai (Chairperson)
 			Dr. Huamin Qu


**** ALL are Welcome ****