A Program for Handling Map Projections of Small Scale Geospatial Raster Data

Authors

  • Michael P Finn U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (CEGIS), Denver, Colorado
  • Daniel R Steinwand USGS, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
  • Jason R Trent USGS, CEGIS, Rolla, Missouri
  • Robert A Buehler USGS, CEGIS, Rolla, Missouri
  • David M Mattli U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (CEGIS), Denver, Colorado
  • Kristina Haruka Yamamoto U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (CEGIS), Denver, Colorado

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14714/CP71.61

Keywords:

raster data, map projection, transformations

Abstract

Scientists routinely accomplish small-scale geospatial modeling using raster datasets of global extent. Such use often requires the projection of global raster datasets onto a map or the reprojection from a given map projection associated with a dataset. The distortion characteristics of these projection transformations can have significant effects on modeling results. Distortions associated with the reprojection of global data are generally greater than distortions associated with reprojections of larger-scale, localized areas. The accuracy of areas in projected raster datasets of global extent is dependent on resolution. To address these problems of projection and the associated resampling that accompanies it, methods for framing the transformation space, direct point-to-point transformations rather than gridded transformation spaces, a solution to the wrap-around problem, and an approach to alternative resampling methods are presented. The implementations of these methods are provided in an open source software package called MapImage (or mapIMG, for short), which is designed to function on a variety of computer architectures.

Author Biographies

Jason R Trent, USGS, CEGIS, Rolla, Missouri

Now with Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, NM.

Robert A Buehler, USGS, CEGIS, Rolla, Missouri

Now with Garmin International, Inc., Olathe, KS

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Published

2012-09-24

How to Cite

Finn, M. P., Steinwand, D. R., Trent, J. R., Buehler, R. A., Mattli, D. M., & Yamamoto, K. H. (2012). A Program for Handling Map Projections of Small Scale Geospatial Raster Data. Cartographic Perspectives, (71), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP71.61

Issue

No. 71 (2012)

Section

Peer-Reviewed Articles

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