Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

on the other hand, the flat earth model has been abandonned some centuries ago by scientists (when they ceased being prosecuted for what they said)

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

There are scripts and things for GIMP which will globe a map and make it turn. Or chop one into that peeled orange looking thing which might be interesting to play on.

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

How?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes but the maps that wraparound both north-south & east-west do NOT simulate a globe. It simulates some weird geometry that'd give you a headache if you physically saw it in all its dimensional glory.

On real globes if you go around the top, you'll end up halfway around on the other side, not at the bottom http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, it's not too painful - if I'm not totally wrong that is...

The shape is a doughnut. take a piece of paper, wrap it into a cylinder and then fold the top and bottom inwards til they touch - a doughnut.

mmmmm.. doughnuts...

Wouldn't want to live on one though..

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

Wait, I just realized something...

There's no map that just wraps east/west unless you make it using the neighbor commands?

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">... misconception I found especially widespread in the US ...

IIRC: 300 B.C., eastern mediterranean - they calculated the earth diameter .. from knowing the distance Alexandria - Luxor and the fact, that one day in the year sun was right vertical over Luxor and cast a short shadow in Alexandria.
And they got it mostly right (+- 15% or somewhat)!!

To calculate an earth diameter you must be shure the earth isn't flat at first, don't you?

A.

PS: And Galileo wasn't tortured, you know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ December 24, 2003, 13:09: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

Very interesting!

Of course, that was with an assumption about what the shape was. I presume they were assuming it was spherical.

One could make Doms II maps with polar regions to try to simulate a sphere.

However, unless it were an enormous map, it'd be a pretty small sphere.

From an ancient/medieval Earth perspective though, a relatively small flat chunk is perhaps more appropriate and realistic than a sphere. If everyone in the world believes the world is a flat chunk, then for all effects and purposes, it is, until someone discovers otherwise.

PvK

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Especially if the seas around it are inhabited by things that will want to suck your brains for a lunch and can paralyze you before you can say
"Cthulhu fghtagn"... (thanks Slogan... My knowledge about Cthulhu ends in the local library where they have no books of Lovecraft)

[ December 24, 2003, 19:09: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

The Greeks knew the world was round, but that knowledge was lost to Europe during the “Dark Ages.” The Muslim civilization kept this knowledge, as well as a lot of other Greek advances, alive during this period, as well as making a lot of other neat advances like algebra. As Europe came out of the Dark Ages, it was not so much that they were discovering things, but that they were getting information from the Islamic world. The key difference, and why the world is as it is today, is what Europe did when they put the information together.

Re: Wrap-around maps suck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes but the maps that wraparound both north-south & east-west do NOT simulate a globe. It simulates some weird geometry that'd give you a headache if you physically saw it in all its dimensional glory.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, the geometry isn't that hard to imagine: it's a torus - something like the surface of a rubber ring (with or without the duck head; it doesn't change the geometry much).

Still, I'd like to see a decent explanation for why the world is like this (it can be a "fantasy" one, but still...)