Flat Maps for a Round Planet

Microsoft’s SQL Server Developer Center is an unusual place for it, but there it is anyway: a primer on map projections entitled Introduction to Spatial Coordinate Systems: Flat Maps for a Round Planet. The summary: “This paper is an introduction to Earth-oriented coordinate systems, projections, models, and mapping. While not specific to any technology, this information provides valuable background for those who will use spatial data in SQL Server.” It is easily applicable outside that context as well. Via Virtual Earth, an Evangelist’s Blog.

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Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 4:30 PM
Categories: Map Projections

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Comments

Not surprising to find it at SQL server — that is one of the places frequented by the late Jim Gray, database guru and instigator of the Terraserver image database.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) were/are one of the very fertile grounds for database research and use in the 90s. Figuring out how to store spatial data, particularly for a sphere, in a relational database built around two-dimensional tables is something that requires a great deal of thought.

That it would be documented in a general way is the sort of thing that Jim Gray really liked to do, and see in others.

-dB

[TypeKey Profile Page] dbrower | 07/22/2008 at 11:48 PM | #

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