ABSTRACT
Scientific and technological developments over the last few decades have brought new ways to create and use maps. The Internet has spread maps to all corners of the planet and allows everyone to use maps, on a desktop or mobile device, while everyone seems to be able to create maps, since both data and tools are widely available. However, while the design of communicative maps is still an art, it also requires the science of cartography. Science underpins the cartographic project, and one of the most important aspects of this is how the world, as a three-dimensional entity, is modelled. This is the realm of geodesy – the science of mapping the Earth. Maps include the study of spherical or ellipsoidal transformation from the Earth's surface model to a two-dimensional representation, requiring the use of the following concepts: ellipsoid, datum, and coordinate systems.
