Mercator
From ICA Map Projections
Revision as of 18:06, 19 March 2006 by DaanStrebe (Talk)
Projection name: Mercator
| English | Français | Deutsch | 日本語 | Русский | Español | Polski | Português |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercator | メルカートル |
- Projection naming principle: Principle of Preponderance of Precedence.
- Year of origin: 1511.
- Name of originator: Erhard Etzlaub (Nuremburg).
- Originator reference:
- Year of formulation: 1599
- Name of formulator: Edward Wright (England).
- Formula citation: Wright, Edward. 1610. Certaine Errors in Navigation. London.
- Projection synonyms: Wright.
- Projection properties: Conformal; straight rhumbs (in equatorial aspect).
- Projection derivatives: Gauss-Krüger, Hotine, Cole, Rosenmund, Laborde, UTM = Universal Transverse Mercator, space oblique Mercator.
- Naïve specializations:
- transverse cylindrical orthomorphic (transverse aspect).
- oblique cylindrical orthomorphic (oblique aspect).
- Generalizations:
Chronology of projection development
- 1511: Erhard Etzlaub (Nuremburg) creates maps using an accurate Mercator projection. He records nothing of his method.
- 1537: Pedro Nunes (Portugal) describes the rhumb.
- 1566 (ca): Nunes describes for the first time a way to approximate a large-scale projection that keeps rhumbs straight, but does not construct any maps based on it. Whether he realized the principle could be generalized to a small-scale projection remains unclear.
- 1569: Gerardus Mercator (Flanders; probably christened Gerhard Kremer) produces a small-scale map based on the loxodromic principle, and promotes it for the purpose of navigation. His method of construction remains unknown.
- 1599: Edward Wright (London) describes the exact mathematics of the spherical Mercator projection for the first time, although his description amounts to an infinite series rather than the modern, closed form obtained from the calculus.
- 1600 (ca): Thomas Harriot (London), in unpublished manuscripts, develops the modern logarithmic form of the projection.
- 1610: Wright publishes accurate tables for the construction of the Mercator projection, unaware of Harriot’s unpublished work.
- 1645: Henry Bond (London) publishes the modern logarithmic form of the projection in Norwood’s Epitome of Navigation, also unaware of Harriot’s unpublished work.
