The BC model is unique in both size and shape. It was manufactured from than 260 Million elevation data points and is covered by more than 100 Billion droplets of ink. At a scale of 1:99,000, the terrain on the model surface is vertically exaggerated by 50 percent while the curvature is an accurate one-to-one representation of the Earth. This model represents approximately 1/190th or 0.52% of the Earth’s surface.
The model’s 100 panels are arranged in a 10-by-10 array with each panel having a unique shape. The overall shape of the model is defined by a section of a sphere that is divided into panels along “great circle” lines. A “great circle” is a cartographic concept that provides the shortest distance between two points, and is defined as the intersection of a plane that passes through two points on the surface of the sphere and the center of the sphere.
Each panel of the model was “cut” along the great circle lines created by planes that pass through the center of the sphere and the corner points of each panel. The result is that the panels fit together almost seamlessly and any visible seams between panels appear as long, smooth curves when viewed from above, with the long edges providing the most pronounced effect.
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