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Putting a map on a screen, and everything that goes wrong on the way

Browse all thirty entries

Projections
What a projection gives up.
Datums & Coordinates
Where a coordinate actually refers to.
Scale & Generalisation
What tolerance deletes.
Tiles & Zoom
Why the map arrives in squares.
Vector & Raster
Geometry on arrival, or pixels in advance.
Classification
Two stories, one dataset.
Map Furniture
Scale bars, legends and three norths.
Survey & Measurement
What a benchmark agrees to.

08

Section 08

Survey & Measurement

What a benchmark agrees to.

3 entries. Each one names what the choice keeps and what it wrecks.

A surveyor at a tripod instrument in a field

The entries

Where a coordinate comes from
Every position is measured from something else. The chain ends at a physical mark somebody set in the ground.
What a benchmark agrees to
A mark is a shared assumption, and assumptions get revised.
Accuracy against precision
Six decimal places of the wrong thing.

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GeoWeb Guru

A register of the trade-offs behind every map on a screen. Every entry names what a choice keeps and what it wrecks.

01–02

Projections
Datums & Coordinates

03–04

Scale & Generalisation
Tiles & Zoom

05–06

Vector & Raster
Classification

07–08

Map Furniture
Survey & Measurement

Eight sections, thirty entries.The full register