Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Dymaxion map
The Dymaxion map projection, also called the Fuller projection, is a kind of polyhedral map projection of the Earth's surface onto the unfolded net of an icosahedron. The resulting map is heavily interrupted in order to reduce shape and size distortion compared to other world maps, but the interruptions are chosen to lie in the ocean.
The projection was invented by Buckminster Fuller. In 1943, Fuller proposed a projection onto a cuboctahedron, which he called the Dymaxion World, using the name Dymaxion which he also applied to several of his other inventions. In 1954, Fuller and cartographer Shoji Sadao produced an updated Dymaxion map, the Airocean World Map, based on an icosahedron with a few of the triangular faces cut to avoid breaks in landmasses.
The Dymaxion projection is intended for representations of the entire Earth.
The March 1, 1943, edition of Life magazine included a photographic essay titled "Life Presents R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion World", illustrating a projection onto a cuboctahedron, including several examples of possible arrangements of the square and triangular pieces, and a pull-out section of one-sided magazine pages with the map faces printed on them, intended to be cut out and glued to card stock to make a three-dimensional cuboctahedron or its two-dimensional net. Fuller applied for a patent in the United States in February 1944 for the cuboctahedron projection, which was issued in January 1946.
In 1954, Fuller and cartographer Shoji Sadao produced a new map onto an icosahedron instead of the cuboctahedron. It depicts Earth's continents as "one island", or nearly contiguous land masses. References today to the Fuller projection or Dymaxion usually indicate this version.
Unlike other polyhedral map projections, the Dymaxion map does not use a gnomonic projection (perspective projection through the Earth's center onto the polyhedral surface), which causes length distortion away from the center of each face. Instead each triangle's three edges on the Dymaxion map match the scale along the corresponding arcs of great circles on the Earth (modeled as a sphere), and then the scale diminishes toward the middle of the triangle. The transformation process was formally mathematically defined in 1978.
Though neither conformal nor equal-area, Fuller claimed that his map had several advantages over other projections for world maps.
It has less distortion of relative size of areas, most notably when compared to the Mercator projection; and less distortion of shapes of areas, notably when compared to the Gall–Peters projection. Other compromise projections attempt a similar trade-off.
Hub AI
Dymaxion map AI simulator
(@Dymaxion map_simulator)
Dymaxion map
The Dymaxion map projection, also called the Fuller projection, is a kind of polyhedral map projection of the Earth's surface onto the unfolded net of an icosahedron. The resulting map is heavily interrupted in order to reduce shape and size distortion compared to other world maps, but the interruptions are chosen to lie in the ocean.
The projection was invented by Buckminster Fuller. In 1943, Fuller proposed a projection onto a cuboctahedron, which he called the Dymaxion World, using the name Dymaxion which he also applied to several of his other inventions. In 1954, Fuller and cartographer Shoji Sadao produced an updated Dymaxion map, the Airocean World Map, based on an icosahedron with a few of the triangular faces cut to avoid breaks in landmasses.
The Dymaxion projection is intended for representations of the entire Earth.
The March 1, 1943, edition of Life magazine included a photographic essay titled "Life Presents R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion World", illustrating a projection onto a cuboctahedron, including several examples of possible arrangements of the square and triangular pieces, and a pull-out section of one-sided magazine pages with the map faces printed on them, intended to be cut out and glued to card stock to make a three-dimensional cuboctahedron or its two-dimensional net. Fuller applied for a patent in the United States in February 1944 for the cuboctahedron projection, which was issued in January 1946.
In 1954, Fuller and cartographer Shoji Sadao produced a new map onto an icosahedron instead of the cuboctahedron. It depicts Earth's continents as "one island", or nearly contiguous land masses. References today to the Fuller projection or Dymaxion usually indicate this version.
Unlike other polyhedral map projections, the Dymaxion map does not use a gnomonic projection (perspective projection through the Earth's center onto the polyhedral surface), which causes length distortion away from the center of each face. Instead each triangle's three edges on the Dymaxion map match the scale along the corresponding arcs of great circles on the Earth (modeled as a sphere), and then the scale diminishes toward the middle of the triangle. The transformation process was formally mathematically defined in 1978.
Though neither conformal nor equal-area, Fuller claimed that his map had several advantages over other projections for world maps.
It has less distortion of relative size of areas, most notably when compared to the Mercator projection; and less distortion of shapes of areas, notably when compared to the Gall–Peters projection. Other compromise projections attempt a similar trade-off.