Jan 22, 2010
Dymaxion Projection This is an animation illustrating Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map Projection of Earth. While this animation is not mathematically accurate, I think it’s a good illustration of the concept. Basically, Fuller started with the data for the spherical Earth surface. He projected the data from the sphere onto an icosahedron — the twenty- sided Platonic solid — and then unfolded that icosahedron out flat. The advantages of this method are many: for one thing, it’s possible to align the surface data with the icosahedron in such a way that, when unfolded, no landmass is cut into, which allows us to see the Earth’s landmasses as one continent (this is where my illustration falls short; note that the landmass is cut into in a couple of spots); also, this method results in nearly no distortion of either size or shape of the landmasses, unlike most other projections (the familiar classroom Mercator map or the Peters projection, for example).

Dymaxion Projection

This is an animation illustrating Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map Projection of Earth. While this animation is not mathematically accurate, I think it’s a good illustration of the concept.

Basically, Fuller started with the data for the spherical Earth surface. He projected the data from the sphere onto an icosahedron — the twenty- sided Platonic solid — and then unfolded that icosahedron out flat.

The advantages of this method are many: for one thing, it’s possible to align the surface data with the icosahedron in such a way that, when unfolded, no landmass is cut into, which allows us to see the Earth’s landmasses as one continent (this is where my illustration falls short; note that the landmass is cut into in a couple of spots); also, this method results in nearly no distortion of either size or shape of the landmasses, unlike most other projections (the familiar classroom Mercator map or the Peters projection, for example).

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