v3.0.0 - New Beginnings

30 December 12,025

This newest iteration of my Dymax Map project is the most detailed yet. The raster base-map is (to my knowledge) the highest resolution single-image Dymaxion projection map in existence.

It started as eight full-resolution GeoTIFF tiles from NASA's Blue Marble: Next Generation images. Those eight images were then taken into ArcGIS Pro (using their free trial), and assigned to the Equirectangular projection. Each tile was then individually converted to the Dymaxion (aka Fuller) projection, and exported as high-resolution PNGs.

These eight PNG tiles were then imported into Affinity and carefully assembled like puzzle pieces into the final collage below, exported as high-resolution as Affinity would allow.

This is likely the highest-resolution single-image Dymaxion raster map in existence. The uncompressed version is 23,767 by 15,479 pixels. I have reason to believe that a higher resolution is possible, as this is just the largest version that Affinity would allow to be opened.

Regardless, with this new base-map in hand, I returned to Affinity and imported several copies to reassemble the map to my desired shape. This shape was chosen to maximize the cohesion of geographical groups, most consequentially in the Pacific region.

This altered shape is the same resolution as the previous collage, but in a different aspect ratio, at 23,765 x 22,698 pixels.

After this, I speculated for some time about how best to draw the vector landmasses on top of this base-map. The workflow I eventually developed goes something like this:

1. Locate a high-quality vector map of the target region on Wikimedia Commons

2. Download that map as an SVG file

3. Open that file in Affinity

4. Copy the relevant elements to the Dymax workspace

5. Carefully resize & position the pasted map over the target region

6. Create a mesh warp from those assets and even more carefully align geographical features with the base-map

7. Convert the mesh warp to vector curves and recolor

8. Manually fill in any missing islands and/or other important details

9. Repeat in neighboring region

That eighth step typically takes longer than all the previous ones. Especially for particularly island-dense regions (like the Canadian Arctic). The positioning of these countless small islands is assisted by viewing the same region in Openstreetmap, Google Earth, or ArcGIS Earth while drawing them in.

The first regions to be mapped in this version were the island groups of Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, and Jan Mayen.