Probably a long shot, but I’m hoping the STW hive-mind can help me out here…

At my work we’re hoping to produce a kind of viewpoint plaque – you know, the kind of thing you sometimes see at a beauty spot showing names of and distances to various features on the skyline. The difference is, we want to show the places we’re linked to globally, rather than just a representation of what’s in sight.

Initially I’d thought of somehow showing most of the world in a circle, or possibly a semi circle (top half only, like a fan window). But instead of the poles being at the top and bottom we’d want our location at the “South Pole” (or in the middle of the bottom edge if using a semi-circle), and then our network of connections fanning out across a distorted – but recognisable – map of the world. We’re based in southern England and don’t need to show much of northern Europe, northern Asia, or Alaska / western Canada (no offence, if that’s where you’re from), but would want to show most of the rest of the world’s land mass.

This is going to be mounted flat, so the idea is people will be able to stand in front of it and look up and imagine the network fanning out from under their feet. The nearest I can come up with is an “upside down” (conventionally speaking) toroidial “Armadillo” projection, but there must be something better.

And once I’ve got my projection, any suggestions how I can knock up an example of what it’d look like centred on “me”!? I keep thinking there must be some demo software online, but I can’t find any.

I should say we’re a museum (and a Charidee to boot), not some organisation with global reach, cheekily asking for free advice. This is to help persuade our visitors that we’re more than just a little tin-pot backwater…!

Thanks in advance.

Can’t say I have thought about it for more than it took to read your post but you should be able to something vaguely like what you want by creating a custom projection in GIS software. Unfortunately I use ArcGIS which is very expensive unless you are a student, though you can register for a free 60 day trial. There are free options like QGIS though but I don’t know anything about it really.

By customising a projection you can change things like the central meridian and projection to get your desired end result. You might want to start with a polar projection and move the datum origin to your location. From your description though if you are wanting to exclude some parts of the world you might be better approaching it from a purely graphical point of view in graphics software rather than delving into projections.

Given you are a charity you might be able to get an enthusiast to devote some time to it. I’d suggest the GIS StackExchange but beware all you might get is a bunch of pedantic geeks criticising the construction of your question, or offering solutions involving scripting in some obscure language/package.

Approaching someone like ESRI, who make ArcGIS, might work too, if there is a potential for some free marketing by them doing a map with ESRI written on it or something. There is an ESRI UK with offices down south in Aylesbury at least. Universities that teach GIS might be interested too.

Oh and whatever happens “upside down (conventionally speaking) toroidial “Armadillo” projection” needs to become a real projection 8)

Thanks Bigjim, That’s really helpful.

Off to have a play with QGIS. I sense a steep learning curve coming on! Oh, and the Armadillo projection (which is toroidal) does exist…. it’s just the rest of my made-up / misused terminology that makes it sound so wrong!

I’ve never seen that projection before, I like it.

Definitely a steep initial learning curve with the software and projections but you should get the hang of it if you are keen. Projections and coordinate systems are possibly the least understood aspect of GIS and the cause of most problems in my experience. They’ve caused very expensive problems in large infrastructure developments when things don’t turn out to be quite where they should be.

Modern software makes it relatively easy to work with them but you can get as geeky as you like really. There will be a GIStrackworld somewhere but one forum is enough for me as it is