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6.3.9 Cylindrical stereographic projections (-Jcyl_stere -JCyl_stere)

The cylindrical stereographic projections are certainly not as notable as other cylindrical projections, but are still used because of their relative simplicity and their ability to overcome some of the downsides of other cylindrical projections, like extreme distortions of the higher latitudes. The stereographic projections are perspective projections, projecting the sphere onto a cylinder in the direction of the antipodal point on the equator. The cylinder crosses the sphere at two standard parallels, equidistant from the equator. The projections are defined by:

Some of the selections of the standard parallel are named for the cartographer or publication that popularized the projection (Table 6.3).


Table 6.3: Standard parallels for some cylindrical equal-area projections.
Projection Standard parallel
Miller's modified Gall 66.159467°
Kamenetskiy's First 55°
Gall's stereographic 45°
Bolshoi Sovietskii Atlas Mira or Kamenetskiy's Second 30°
Braun's cylindrical


A map of the world, centered on the Greenwich meridian, using the Gall's stereographic projection (standard parallel is 45°, Figure 6.23), is obtained as follows:




gmtset PLOT_DEGREE_FORMAT dddA
pscoast -R-180/180/-60/80 -JCyl_stere/0/45/4.5i -Ba60f30g30/a30g30 -Dc -A5000 -Wblack -Ggrey -P \
        > GMT_gall_stereo.ps


Figure 6.23: World map using Gall's stereographic projection.
\includegraphics{scripts/GMT_gall_stereo}


next up previous contents index
Next: 6.4 Miscellaneous projections Up: 6.3 Cylindrical projections Previous: 6.3.8 Miller Cylindrical projection   Contents   Index
Paul Wessel 2008-05-15