Mapping Pole Shifts - I could use some help here...

[Jürgen Hubert]

OK, here's a question for those who are more fit with graphics software than I am...

I want to create a map of Earth for a post-apocalyptic Cthulhu setting. However, things have changed - to be specific, the poles have shifted away from where they used to be.

So let's take the attached topographic map of Earth as a baseline. How would I transform the map in a way that displays (say) Los Angeles as the North Pole (i.e., the location at the top of the map)?

I use Corel Photo-Paint 9, if that's any help...

 

[DethStryke]

The first thing that comes to mind is that you could first get a 3d program and find a mapped model of the earth. That should be pretty easy to come by on the web.

With that model loaded, you should be able to shift the map on the sphere model so that your base point of Los Angeles is on the North Pole area. Then render some shots from straight on East & West, etc.

For Painter, I would take your original picture and tile it at least 6 times, like so:

|=======|======|======|
|----1---|----2---|---3----|
|=======|======|======|
|----4---|----5---|---6----|
|=======|======|======|

Since the world is round, it *should* tile perfectly. On number 2 area in the diagram, center the top center of the "world" on Los Angeles. Then crop the picture to the original size with los angeles at the top center of the rectangle. That should fill the surrounding edges with the proper land & water.

I suggest finding the same kind of image only without the thermal colors on everything, as your entire temperature zones are going to be drastically different. Most of the Western US will look like Alaska/Northpole/Greenland, etc etc. Coloring it all should be some fun though.

Remember though, this is a quick and dirty "fix". This will NOT result in a totally accurate map. The reason for that is because the particular map you choose is not the sliced up map. The top of the world is obviously smaller than around the middle.... so when you try to make the map fit on a rectangular page, you end up streching the top and bottom WAY out to the east and west for it to fit properly. A common example is that Greenland is actually pretty small... yet any time you see it on a map, it looks fricken huge. That's because it is streched to fit the rectangle.

Here's a darn good visual reference on how and why this is, for the curious.

I could tell you exactly how to do it, step by step, in photoshop. I'm afraid I'm not as fluent in Painter.