[OSM-talk] JOSM and scale

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

<quote who="David Earl">
> In Mercator distance is constant independent of orientation, isn't it?

Wrong. Quoting Wikipedia:

"While the direction and shapes are accurate on a Mercator projection, it
distorts the size."

In other words, the Mercator projection is conformal, but not equidistant.

In other words, it preserves shapes while deforming distances and areas
greatly.

I think that your question really is in the lines of:
In Mercator, *in a small area*, the vertical scale is the same as the
horizontal scale, which is the same as any diagonal scale? The answer is
"yes".

(You'll still suffer from a very tiny deformation, something like 1/100000
perhaps - the smaller the area you're working in, the smaller the
deformation you'll be suffering from. And I think that's true for most map
projections.)


-- 
Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivansanchez at escomposlinux.org>

Un ordenador no es un televisor ni un microondas, es una herramienta
compleja.