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Projection

Last Updated: February 06, 2008 Related resource areas: Geospatial Technology

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Projection refers to the description of the manner in which the coordinates are represented on a 2D plane. Projections represent the way the Earth is "reported" when you turn a 3D object into a flat 2D representation.

Map projections have been defined into some common forms which describe the shape of the plane as well as the distance measurements. Examples of these include:

1. Surface projection types

  • Cylindrical
  • Conical
  • Azimuthal (projections onto a plane)

2. Metric descriptions

  • Conformal
  • Equal-area
  • Equidistant


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