Best way to create tilted/custom small scale map projection in ArcGIS?

[JoeriTheelen]

Hi,

For a publication, I need to create a bunch of similar small scale map projections, showing locations with the least possible distortion. Unfortunately, the locations are spread out in an area ranging from Western Europe all the way to Southern India, with the majority of locations in the Eastern Mediterranean area (the discipline is archaeology in case you're wondering). The locations are indicated on the map attached. I assume the best projection would be either Lambert conformal conic projection or Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection, but with the line of least distortion touching the globe where the red line is drawn in the attached map. So the projection plane must be tilted.

I have 2 questions:

- is there an elegant way to find the projection parameters having the least distortion, given the set of locations to be shown;

- how can I define such a "tilted" standard projection in ArcGIS (I'm using ArcMap to create the atlas of maps);

Thank you,

Joeri

[MelitaKennedy · Accepted solution]

I would suggest Hotine oblique Mercator or RSO (rectified skew orthomorphic). They're the same, but RSO has an extra parameter that rotates the map projection at the end. That is, you use the azimuth to align the cylinder with your chosen line, then the xy_rotation to re-orient, or not, the cylinder to true north.

Another possibility is two point equidistant conic.

Melita

[JoeriTheelen]

Thank you. This answered my question.