The azimuthal orthographic is thousands of years old. In the first century, Ptolemy described how a geographer named Hipparchus used the projection, which he called the analemma, to map the globe.

Their own azimuthal equidistant double-sided projection, meanwhile, scores 0.881. “We believe it is the most accurate flat map of Earth yet,” the trio write.

“For example, Mercators projection is true to scale only along the equator, and azimuthal projection is limited to convergence of the meridians at one pole at a time.

Map the region’s boundary using the azimuthal equidistant projection, initially guessing where the geographic center might be, and centering the map there.

Known as a "planisphere," the map is aligned in a “north polar azimuthal projection,” meaning that the North Pole is at its center. When he published his work in a four-volume, ...

Factum Arte has also made an animation of a waterless 3-D globe, along with their five 3-D relief models based on historical maps. The first, known as the “Azimuthal Projection,” evokes the ...