Clever folds in a globe give new perspectives on Earth

My favorite part of the article was the final sentences:

Van Wijk attributes his success to being somewhat of an outsider. Cartographers typically seek single formulae that can be used to transform the entire globe, he says, while computer scientists look for algorithms that work in small steps and can be more adaptable.

Once again thinking in an innovative ways results in something useful and interesting.

The first time I went to the link, Norton caught an intrusion attempt. Has anyone else experienced it?

This is reminiscent of the Dymaxion Map developed by Buckminster Fuller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map

Jack van Wijk gave the keynote at IEEE visualization a few years back and spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how to pronounce his name, the best part of which was when he told how Greg Nielson remarked that his last name looked like a tensor.

It's really cool and a convenient visualization for humans, but with the proliferation of GPS and computerized mapping (everything in a big -180 to +180, -90 to +90 rectangle), I'm afraid it's destined to be a smaller niche than it could have been prior to the information age. Shame really.