Alexander Bobenko and Charles Gunn
How can you make good flat maps of the round earth?' Our story
begins with Mercator's world map of 1569, the first angle-preserving
(or 'conformal') world map. His idea fell on fruitful soil, from
which a new branch of mathematics has developed. The movie shows
some of the highlights of this development, yielding a series of
elegant visual forms which arise as 'conformal maps' on a variety of
surfaces in 2- and 3-D. Featuring non-technical language, a simple
aesthetic, compelling animation, and an original score, the movie
builds an accessible bridge from everyday experience to a beautiful
but little-known mathematical theory that continues to bear
technological fruit today in fields such as computer graphics and
architecture. This is a short trailer version of the film. More
information on the full version (15 minutes long) is available at
conformmovie.de.