The Dymaxion map or Fuller map is a projection of a world map onto the
surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two
dimensions. The flat map is heavily interrupted in order to preserve shapes
and sizes. The map was created by Buckminster
Fuller. The March 1, 1943, edition of Life magazine included a photographic
essay titled "Life Presents R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion World".
The article included several examples of its use together with a pull-out section
that could be assembled as a "three-dimensional approximation of a
globe or laid out as a flat map, with which the world may be fitted together
and rearranged to illuminate special aspects of its geography." Fuller
applied for a patent in the United States in February 1944, the patent
application showing a projection onto a cuboctahedron. The patent was issued in
January 1946. The 1954 version published by Fuller,
the Airocean World Map, used a modified but mostly regular icosahedron as the
base for the projection, which is the version most commonly referred to today.
This version depicts the Earth's continents as "one island," or nearly
contiguous land masses. The Dymaxion projection is intended only
for representations of the entire globe. It is not a gnomonic projection, whereby
global data expands from the center point of a tangent facet outward to the
edges. Instead, each triangle edge of the Dymaxion map matches the scale of a
partial great circle on a corresponding globe, and other points within each
facet shrink toward its middle, rather than enlarging to the peripheries.
The name Dymaxion was applied by Fuller to several of his inventions.
Properties Fuller claimed that his map had several
advantages over other projections for world maps.
It has less distortion of relative size of areas, most notably when compared to
the Mercator projection; and less distortion of shapes of areas, notably
when compared to the Gall–Peters projection. Other compromise projections
attempt a similar trade-off. More unusually, the Dymaxion map does
not have any "right way up". Fuller argued that in the universe there is no
"up" and "down", or "north" and "south": only "in" and "out". Gravitational
forces of the stars and planets created "in", meaning 'towards the gravitational
center', and "out", meaning "away from the gravitational center". He attributed
the north-up-superior/south-down-inferior
presentation of most other world maps to cultural bias.
Fuller intended the map to be unfolded in different ways to emphasize different
aspects of the world. Peeling the triangular faces of the icosahedron
apart in one way results in an icosahedral net that shows an almost
contiguous land mass comprising all of Earth's continents – not groups of
continents divided by oceans. Peeling the solid apart in a different way
presents a view of the world dominated by connected oceans surrounded by land.
Showing the continents as "one island earth" also helped Fuller explain, in
his book Critical Path, the journeys of early seafaring people, who were in
effect using prevailing winds to circumnavigate this world island.
Impact A 1967 Jasper Johns painting, "Map",
depicting a Dymaxion map, hangs in the permanent collection of the Museum
Ludwig in Cologne. The World Game, a collaborative
simulation game in which players attempt to solve world problems, is played on a
70-by-35-foot Dymaxion map. In 2013, to commemorate the 70th
anniversary of the publication of the Dymaxion map in Life magazine, the
Buckminster Fuller Institute announced the "Dymax Redux", a competition for
graphic designers and visual artists to re-imagine the Dymaxion map. The
competition received over 300 entries from 42 countries.
See also List of map projections
References External links
DYMAX REDUX, a design competition for a fresh take on the dymaxion projection by
the Buckminster Fuller Institute Fuller Map homepage
Dymaxion Project Animation Icosahedron and Fuller maps
Dynamically generated maps based on the Dymaxion projection