In this week's lab, I got to explore several different coordinate systems and projections. By completing the lab I can understand the nature of distortions that occur due to projections, and as a result, be able to select the best projection for any study area I choose. While we explored many different types of projects, the deliverable for the lab required us to select an area of interest and decide what coordinate system was best for that area of interest. I decided to go with the state of Maine. While Maine does have a state plane coordinate system, it wouldn't be best to showcase the state equally because it is divided into two coordinate systems, east and west. So the next bet would be a state system, a coordinate system representing an entire state. The problem I ran into though was that Maine does not have a state system. So my only other option would be UTM. Maine falls directly in the NAD 1983 UTM Zone 20N, which is perfect. UTM is the ideal system for regions with a smaller east-west extent compared to the north-south extent, and Maine perfectly fits that description. Maine is also relatively small in extent and well contained within zone 20N, as a result, the distortion that typically occurs with projections is minimized drastically in scale and measurements. Here is how the map turned out:
No comments:
Post a Comment