To whom it may concern:

  The World Map of Pov-Ray Users has never had better accuracy, I
discovered a flaw in the markers which caused them to be elevated
above the globe slightly and at oblique viewing angles this created a
position offset (thanks Antti!).  To summarize, they were once more
spherical and then had later been flattened out, this left their
centers hovering.  It wasn't so noticeable before the "zoom" views.
Plus there has been refinements made on a couple locations as well.
Enough said. Check it out again everyone, if you will.  If you are
near a edge of the "world" you may be surprised at the difference from
previous maps.

 http://members.aol.com/wrld0rigin/povwrldjpg.htm

PS   the map has been going for more than 6 months and I hope it keeps
going. If you haven't yet submitted your location please consider
doing so, just click on a part of one of the 3 globes which isn't
designated as North America, Europe, or Australia and that will take
you to the submission web page (be sure to bookmark the URL so you can
get back anytime).  Thanks to everyone.

Bob
--
omniVERSE
http://members.aol.com/inversez/POVring.htm

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On Sun, 12 Sep 1999 11:06:46 -0500, Bob Hughes <inv### [at] aolcom> wrote:
>discovered a flaw in the markers which caused them to be elevated
>above the globe slightly and at oblique viewing angles this created a
>position offset (thanks Antti!).  To summarize, they were once more

I'm glad if my complaints have been helpful, I'm now happy with my
location on the map and the rest of us finns probably too - at least they
seem to be rather accurately in/near larger cities.

-- 
Antti Arola (@lut.fi)
aea### [at] ioboxfi

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It's really strange that, considering the number of spanish-speaking people
here, there are no spots in Spain and only a few in Central and South America.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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The "main cities" is one reason I hadn't firmly accounted for
locations before, very few people were said to be using only a city
coordinate so most are likely in surrounding areas.  London seemed to
be where it should have been for example but I was trying to line up a
paper map with a gridless image so the only really alignable cities
would be on a coastline with obvious landmarks.  Also I had only done
that based on the full view of the 3 globes which didn't need much
accuracy anyhow.  From what I've been able to tell everyone should be
within a 1/4 degree, or about 12.5 miles, of there actual location
(possibly as much as 1/2 degree or 25 miles).  But then I've only just
now been able to check according to this more accurate rendering so it
may be better or worse.  I know my marker seems to be less than 10
miles off if at all.  I haven't zoomed in yet on various locales to
further see the precision/inaccuracy.

Bob

Antti Arola <aea### [at] ioboxfi> wrote in message
news:slr### [at] kuhacclutfi...
> On Sun, 12 Sep 1999 11:06:46 -0500, Bob Hughes <inv### [at] aolcom>
wrote:
> >discovered a flaw in the markers which caused them to be elevated
> >above the globe slightly and at oblique viewing angles this created
a
> >position offset (thanks Antti!).  To summarize, they were once more
>
> I'm glad if my complaints have been helpful, I'm now happy with my
> location on the map and the rest of us finns probably too - at least
they
> seem to be rather accurately in/near larger cities.
>
> --
> Antti Arola (@lut.fi)
> aea### [at] ioboxfi
>

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Hi Bob Hughes, you recently wrote in povray.general:
> I haven't zoomed in yet on various locales to
> further see the precision/inaccuracy.
I've been doing a similar project with the registered Moray users and
I've had to write a tool to convert from the real lat/long coordinates
to the ones that I use for the rendering. Turns out the map I'm using
(2048x1024) is a tad inaccurate (error varies up to 2 to 3 degrees
non-linearly), so things now line up pretty nicely. 

I also wrote a program that queries the online database at USGS for
the lat/long of the US cities (don't fancy finding 600 pairs by
hand<g>). 

I'm currently looking for a website that can do lat/long lookup for
non-US cities and that can be queried directly, i.e. with an HTTP
request. No luck so far.

- Lutz
  email : lut### [at] stmuccom
  Web   : http://www.stmuc.com/moray

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On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 15:04:36 GMT, Lutz Kretzschmar wrote:

>I'm currently looking for a website that can do lat/long lookup for
>non-US cities and that can be queried directly, i.e. with an HTTP
>request. No luck so far.

You might try this one, though it looks like you'll have to do two
HTTP requests and may have to further validate the results:

http://www.nima.mil/gns/bin/validate_query

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Ron Parker <par### [at] fwicom> schreef in berichtnieuws
37dd22d6@news.povray.org...
> You might try this one, though it looks like you'll have to do two
> HTTP requests and may have to further validate the results:
>
> http://www.nima.mil/gns/bin/validate_query

You can't go to the validate_query in one step, it gives an error.
You'll have to go via http://164.214.2.59/gns/html/index.html

Ingo

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You might want to take a look at this web page if you haven't seen it
already:
http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~geo/wwwgis.html

It seems to have a lot about such things.  Another place I tried out
found some cities lat/lon okay but not for smaller or lesser known
ones so it doesn't work too well for that purpose.  The MapBlast I
have linked to on one of my pages seems good, you just need to select
"International" from the drop-down list.

Bob

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Heh... <jar-jar> meesa da only dot in Panama. </jar-jar>

-- 
Anthony L. Bennett
http://welcome.to/TonyB

Non nova, sed nove.

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Hi,

The Pov-world population is growing. Soon some countries will be hidden
under the markers :-)

Maybe you could use coloured markers for each country. You really don't
need that many different colours so that no two neighbouring countries
have the same coloured markers. Then you could actually see how many
users live in Belgium, the Netherlands or Luxemburg. Now it is one
cluster.

Also, linking the marks to counties might allow for corrections per
country. If for instance a user of Christmas Island - is there one? - is
getting wet feet, you could place him back on land, without having to
correct the rest of the world.

Smellenbergh
-- 
e-mail:sme### [at] skynetbe

http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh

>Bob Hughes <inv### [at] aolcom> wrote:

>   The World Map of Pov-Ray Users has never had better accuracy, I
> discovered a flaw in the markers which caused them to be elevated
> above the globe slightly and at oblique viewing angles this created a
> position offset (thanks Antti!).  To summarize, they were once more
> spherical and then had later been flattened out, this left their
> centers hovering.  It wasn't so noticeable before the "zoom" views.
> Plus there has been refinements made on a couple locations as well.
> Enough said. Check it out again everyone, if you will.  If you are
> near a edge of the "world" you may be surprised at the difference from
> previous maps.
> 
>  http://members.aol.com/wrld0rigin/povwrldjpg.htm
>

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