conform!

Description:

How can you make good flat maps of the round earth?' Our story begins with Mercator's world map of 1569, the first angle-preserving (or 'conformal') world map. His idea fell on fruitful soil, from which a new branch of mathematics has developed. The movie shows some of the highlights of this development, yielding a series of elegant visual forms which arise as 'conformal maps' on a variety of surfaces in 2- and 3-D. Featuring non-technical language, a simple aesthetic, compelling animation, and an original score, the movie builds an accessible bridge from everyday experience to a beautiful but little-known mathematical theory that continues to bear technological fruit today in fields such as computer graphics and architecture. Credits A movie by Alexander Bobenko and Charles Gunn Concept and Theory Alexander Bobenko, Boris Springborn Conformal Software Development Stefan Sechelmann Additional Conformal Software André Heydt Design, Animation, Rendering, Video Charles Gunn Music Luis Vera Narrator Charles Gunn (English) Kai Heller (German) Pascal Romon (French) Giulio Rasi (Italian) Alexander Bobenko (Russian) Sound Editor Helene Seidl Open Source Software jreality.de jtem.de Mercator map photos courtesy of F. Wilhelm Krücken CG/Architectural images Peter Schröder Thilo Rörig, Stefan Sechelmann Funding DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft SFB/TRR 109 Discretization in Geometry and Dynamics Research Center Matheon