GRIDDING GLOBAL DATA INTO A MINIMALLY DISTORTED GLOBAL RASTER

摘要

Map projections necessarily distort the Earth's surface in some fashion as a result of the transformation to a coordinate system. However, different map projection systems can preserve some properties of geospatial data (e.g., area) at the expense of other properties (e.g., distance or azimuth). To produce a minimally distorted global raster, a global raster generator creates a number and variety of projections using as input geospatial data. The generator intelligently selects the projection systems based on properties of the input data and desired properties of an output global raster. The generator then applies interpolation algorithms to the projections to produce smooth and continuous projections. The generator then re-projects the interpolated projections to a desired output projection system and filters the projections to identify and remove regions of the projections which exhibit distortion. The generator merges the filtered projections which results in a minimally distorted global raster.