ABSTRACT
Map projection is an essential task today in a world flooded with geospatial data. It is the transformation of geographic data from ellipsoidal or spherical coordinates to a plane coordinate system. This transformation is required to bring data from various systems into a common reference framework. The transformation is developed from a 'generating globe', which is a reduced scale model of the Earth as either a sphere, an ellipsoid, or an 'aposphere'. The Mercator projection in the transverse aspect is a conformal projection with the line of constant scale along a meridian rather than the Equator. The stereographic projection is a perspective azimuthal projection that is conformal, that is, it preserves angles. The gnomonic projection maps great circles on the generating globe to straight lines on the map projection. The Robinson projection is a pseudocylindrical projection that is neither conformal nor equal area that uses a set of tabular coordinates rather than mathematical formulae.
