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I tried plotting a world map in orthographic projection in R, using the code modified from here, given below. The output figure is also shown - it is evident that land areas near the boundaries are clipped, in this case Russia and Antarctica. I believe this is due to some points on the polygons wrapping to the "back" of the visible side, which are converted to NAs by the mapping function. Is there any way to get around this?

I really need those missing areas, since my ultimate goal is to plot several of these maps, each with a slightly different centre point. It'd look very odd if certain landmass pops in and out at will.

library(maps)
library(mapdata)

## start plot & extract coordinates from orthographic map
o <- c(-5,155,0) #orientation
xy <- map("world",proj="orthographic",orientation=o)
## draw a circle around the points for coloring the ocean 
polygon(sin(seq(0,2*pi,length.out=100)),cos(seq(0,2*pi,length.out=100)),col=rgb(0.6,0.6,0.9),border=rgb(1,1,1,0.5),lwd=2)
## overlay world map
map("worldHires",proj="orthographic",orientation=o,fill=TRUE,col=rgb(0.5,0.8,0.5),resolution=0,add=TRUE)

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David
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1 Answers1

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I solved it by projecting the points that are just out of view outside the globe, and filling the visible polygons together with these "out" points. A black polygon is then used to cover the spilled landmasses.

In order to do this I retrieved the coordinates of contiguous landmasses using the following function (modified from the maps package):

#Get contiguous country coordinates
contigcoord <- function (database = "world", regions = ".", exact = FALSE, boundary = TRUE, interior = TRUE, fill = FALSE, xlim = NULL, ylim = NULL){
    if (is.character(database))
        as.polygon = fill
    else as.polygon = TRUE
    coord <- maps:::map.poly(database, regions, exact, xlim, ylim, boundary, 
        interior, fill, as.polygon)
    return(coord)
}

I've also written the projection function. "front" = 1 if the point should be visible:

#Lat/Long to x-y (0,1 range) in orthographic projection. Cen is the centre point of map
mapproj <- function(lat,long,cenlat,cenlong){
    d2r=pi/180; lat=lat*d2r; long=long*d2r; cenlat=cenlat*d2r; cenlong=cenlong*d2r
    x=cos(lat)*sin(long-cenlong)
    y=cos(cenlat)*sin(lat)-sin(cenlat)*cos(lat)*cos(long-cenlong)
    front=sin(cenlat)*sin(lat)+cos(cenlat)*cos(lat)*cos(long-cenlong) > 0
    return(list(x=x,y=y,front=front))
}

The code used for filling landmasses is as follows (cenlat and cenlong are the coordinates at the centre of the visible globe):

xy <- contigcoord("world",fill=TRUE)
coord <- cbind(xy$x,xy$y)
coordtr <- mapproj(coord[,2],coord[,1],cenlat,cenlong)
coord <- cbind(coord,coordtr$x,coordtr$y,coordtr$front)

naloc <- (1:nrow(coord))[!complete.cases(coord)]
naloc <- c(0,naloc)
for(i in 2:length(naloc)){
    thispoly <- coord[(naloc[i-1]+1):(naloc[i]-1),3:5,drop=F]
    thispoly <- rbind(thispoly,thispoly[1,])
    unq <- unique(thispoly[,3])
    if(length(unq) == 1){ 
        if(unq == 1){ #Polygon is fully on front side
            polygon(thispoly[,1],thispoly[,2],col=rgb(0.5,0.8,0.5),border=NA)
        }
    } else { #front and back present
        ind <- thispoly[,3] == 0
        #project points "outside" the globe
        temdist <- pmax(sqrt(rowSums(as.matrix(thispoly[ind,1:2]^2))),1e-5)
        thispoly[ind,1:2] <- thispoly[ind,1:2]*(2-temdist)/temdist
        polygon(thispoly[,1],thispoly[,2],col=rgb(0.5,0.8,0.5),border=NA)
    }
}

The result looks like this (before applying a black layer around the globe):

David
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  • how did you plot it? cause the answer does not have a plot function – yuliaUU Nov 14 '17 at 00:15
  • The file has been modified since then, but I think I used an X11 command somewhere to open the graphic device and set the coordinates first. – David Dec 03 '18 at 04:08