[OSM-talk] New "Highways" view in OSM Inspector

[Anthony]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 8:32 PM, John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2010/1/9 Martin Siegel <martin.siegel at sdas.de>:
> > AFAIK this is not correct. First of all the PoV of Mercator projection
> > is not going through the center of the earth. It's a somehow stretched
> > cylindrical projection and it goes through the north-south-axis.
> > The way it is stretched causes that angles on the earth are the same as
> > on the map. I'm not completely sure, but I believe the only straight
> > lines that correlate between earth's surface and Mercator projected maps
> > are the equator and all great circles parallel to the meridians.
>
> Not quite, it's about 45 degrees north/south is in correct
> proportions, everything else gets stretched.
>

He is indeed correct that the only line of latitude which is "straight" (as
in, a geodesic) is the equator, and that all the lines of longitude
(meridians) are "straight".

Sort of.  This assumes the earth is a sphere.  Of course it isn't.
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