Projections

May 22, 2020
2 minutes to read

In This Article

This document explains why map projections are important, lists their supported types, and details how to create specializations of various projections in the map control.

#Overview

There are numerous ways of depicting the Earth’s surface on a map. Depending on the usage, the surface can be drawn as a circle, a rectangle, an oval, etc.

Map projections provide numerous methods of representing a sphere surface, or any other three-dimensional body, on a plane. Each map projection distorts the surface in some manner. For instance, the distortion of the Mercator projection increases away from the Equator, and is extreme in the polar regions. Thus, it is difficult to say which projection is the best. The best solution may be to choose a projection that meets your specific requirements.

For more information, see Map projection.

#Map Projections

The following is a list of supported projections provided by the Map control for Silverlight:

#Customization

To make a map projection, do the following:

Create one of the objects listed above (for instance, the EqualAreaProjection object);
Assign an object that represents the map projection to the VectorLayerBase.MapProjection property;
In the VectorLayerBase.InitialMapSize property, specify the Width/height aspect ratio for each projection.

For instance, you can find the Width/height aspect ratio values for the cylindrical equal-area projection on the following link: Cylindrical equal-area projection.

The images below show specializations of the cylindrical equal-area projection.

Lambert

Projection_Lambert