Physical Map of the World - 1 views
-
yc c on 29 Dec 09This site offers a free map of the world with detailed 3D topography, natural environment colors, and thousands of place name labels. You can view the map interactively online or download it to disk for printing as a wall map. A unique feature of the Physical Map of the World is its projection. Rather than using a traditional projection, such as the Miller or Robinson, or the Winkel Tripel now favored by National Geographic, it uses an entirely new projection created with Flex Projector, the first-ever software for designing custom map projections. The Natural Earth projection is a pseudocylindrical projection designed specifically for presenting Natural Earth II environmental data (discussed next), from which it takes its name. The Natural Earth projection combines characteristics of the Robinson and Kavraiskiy VII projections and compares well to them in regard to map distortion.
