Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:33:04 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:19:53 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

You used a globe which could be considered a
artistic rendition of what the Earth looks like, but isn't necessarily
a true rendition of what the complete picture is because it's heavy on
continental distribution.
You lost me on that one. As long as the globe accurately represents
the latitude and longitude of significant surface points (and most do
in my experience unless they are antique), then you should be able to
determine viable great circle routes with a reasonable degree of
accuracy.

As I understand it, and I'm not a cartographer, globes are not
accurate representations of the Earth - unless, of course, you have a
really expensive one that accounts for the slight egg shape - most are
completely and exactly round and the Earth isn't. Plus, as I
understand it, globes are "artistic in the sense that they emphasize
land mass over ocean mass.

Hence the term distribution and the different types of projections
that can be used. Again, as I understand it, you can concentrate on
one or the other or even move the model point to emphasize one thing
or another or even have a moving point in representing land or ocean
masses and stuff like that.

I don't know - it was just a thought.

You need to stop smoking your crop during the afternoon.

More navigation trigonometric insanity:

On a sphere sucha s earth, we use a modified spherical coor system
neediong only two coords to specify a location. What about a toroidal
planet? You'd still need only two coords. What about a double toroid,
yikes, you need 3 coords. You only need 3 coords for any system more
complex than a double toroid.
OK, Lets get bizarre, try a Moeibius strip world. Only need 2 coords,
one for "height" on the strip and an angular coord to specify position
along the strip, but this coord doesnt run from 0 to 2pi, it has to run
from 0 to 4pi, weird. More bizarre, try a Klein bottle world. In the
Klein world you still need two coords, both angular will do nicely.
Most bizarre, a "projective plane" world. This is sorta like a Klein
bottle which is simply a moebius strip with the edges (edge) joined to
make a Moebius tube. The projective plane is where you give the strips
joining the edges a half twist before joining. A cylindrical strip has
two sides and two edges, a Moebius strip has one side and one edge, a
Klein Bottle has only one side, A projective plane has..............(I
dunno) yet still needs two coords to specify a position on it.