# curvas de nivel de la cartografía + Mercator elipsoide



## ilaló

Hola!
Alguien puede decirme si traduje bien estas frases del español al inglés? Creo que aparecerán en un mapa...



Protección Universal Tranversa de Mercator Elipsoide Internacional de 1909 Zona 17 =
*Universal Transversal Mercator International Ellipsoid of 1909 Zone 17 *??



(no sé dónde entrará 'protección' en esto - me pueden ayudar?


  Curvas de nivel de la cartografía escala 1:250.000 =

*Cartography level curves*, scale 1:250.000 ??



Muchas gracias!
Ilaló


----------



## Smac

ilaló said:
			
		

> (no sé dónde entrará 'protección' en esto - me pueden ayudar?


Quizas debería ser *proyección  *


----------



## ilaló

Hola Smac. Entonces sería * 

Universal Transversal Mercator Projection International Ellipsoid of 1909 Zone 17? 
(en ese orden?)
para
*Protección Universal Tranversa de Mercator Elipsoide Internacional de 1909 Zona 17

Muchas gracias!


----------



## Smac

ilaló said:
			
		

> Hola Smac. *Universal Transversal Mercator Projection International Ellipsoid of 1909 Zone 17? *
> *(en ese orden?)*
> *para*
> Protección Universal Tranversa de Mercator Elipsoide Internacional de 1909 Zona 17


There are too many adjectives to be sure, and I am not familiar with all of them, but I think I prefer:
*Universal International Transversal Ellipsoid Mercator Projection of 1909 Zone 17?     *


----------



## ilaló

Thanks, Smac, but when I do a google search for "Ellipsoid Mercator projection" (as a means of confirming the order), I come up with nothing.  On the other hand, "international ellipsoid" exists. I now feel fairly sure that this is probably what I need (I googled my way to a couple of references with the 'zone' bit in parentheses):

*Universal Transversal Mercator Projection of 1909, **International Ellipsoid** (Zone 17)

Thanks for the feedback - without it, I probably wouldn't have thought about making these new adjustments!


*


----------



## Smac

This is a rather technical question that goes well beyond my knowledge of cartography! However, following your idea of a Google search I found that there is a Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system (UTM) for specifying positions on the surface of the earth. Zone 17 is one of 60 longitude zones (each 6 degrees wide). Latitude zones are labelled with letters.
This is still not a complete answer to your question but may help.


----------



## rholt

Es Proyección, no Protección. (Parece un error tipografica).
(Mecator Projection - a Flemish map maker)

Gerardus *Mercator* - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia librePosteriormente *Mercator* produciría su propio atlas en varios tomos, el primero  de los cuales fue publicado en 1578 y consistía en una versión corregida de *...*

Curvas de nivel = contour lines
Technical English - Spanish Vocabulary(2) Abreviación de línea de exploración ; *line* and *line*, arista a arista *...*  compensating *line* , sección compensadora; *contour line* , línea de nivel; *...

*Technical English - Spanish Vocabulary*...* projection screen, pantalla de proyección; central projection , proyección  central; Mercator's projection ; proyección de *Mercator*. *...

**=================
Lo contesto esto ayer pero se perdio. 
*


----------



## ilaló

Muchas gracias, Smac y rholt! Aprecio mucho que se hayan molestado en investigar estos términos.

Creo que me quedaré con lo del Mercator como lo tengo, y basado en lo que me dices de la 'curva', rholt, lo otro sería '*cartography contour lines*'.  Aprecio mucho el apoyo y esfuerzo para ayudarme!

Ilaló


----------



## h2o-guy

ilaló said:


> *Universal Transversal Mercator Projection of 1909, **International Ellipsoid** (Zone 17)*


Hi, ilaló,
I know this thread is old, but I offer this.  1909 applies to the Ellipsoid, not to the Projection.

To cite it in writing:
Universal Transvers*e* Mercator Projection using the International Ellipsoid of 1909 (Zone 17)
Universal Transvers*e* Mercator Projection, International Ellipsoid of 1909 (Zone 17)

The shape of the earth is a geoid.  The experts who mathematically define that shape are geodesists, and they are always coming up with new shapes (geoids) as technology advances.  The International Ellipsoid of 1909 is one of the geoids used to define the shape of the earth.  The UTM is one of many ways of projecting the curved surface of any geoid onto a flat panel - the map.  UTM works well for particular reasons - because the distortion is minimized or is more uniform throughout the map.  The amount of distortion increases near the edges of the map.

To sum up, the *shape* of the earth - the International Ellipsoid of 1909 - was *projected* onto a flat map using the *UTM* method of projection.  The particular area used was located in Zone 17 of the Ellipsoid.

regards


----------



## ilaló

What an excellent explanation, h2o-guy!  I wish I had known this earlier...and to think I just about had it on my second try!....oh well. Anyway, I'm very glad this is here for future reference. Thank you very much!


----------



## cirrus

Here's my mythery contribution: Cartography contour lines sounds a bit of a mouthful to me. Curvas de nivel are contour lines. If you want to say cartográfico just say on a map. Although to me that's redundant: contour lines are only found on maps. Looking at your source text "Curvas de nivel de la cartografía escala 1:250.000 = contour lines on map scale 1: 250k.” could be confusing. 



The scale of the map shows how horizontal distance is calibrated. Another key piece of information for someone reading the map is how vertical distance is measured – in other words the distance between the contours.

BTW myther is a (to my mind utterly indispensable) dialect word from the N of England - a blend of complaining, whingeing and being a bit of a pain.


----------



## h2o-guy

cirrus said:


> . . .mythery contribution: Cartography contour lines sounds a bit of a mouthful to me . . . that's *redundant*: contour lines are only found on maps. Looking at your source text "Curvas de nivel de la cartografía escala 1:250.000 = contour lines on map scale 1: 250k.” could be confusing.


 
Hello, Cirrus (and Ilaló),

Yes it is redundant.  Unfortunately, wordiness is a plague of technical writing; I fight it every day.  From my own observations (and personal experience), engineers in particular use more words than are needed in an effort to be precise or to sound more like an expert.  Usually the extra words are adjectives - even multiple adjectives.  So you get phrases like “mapping contour lines.”  You could simply say, “contours.”  We say that all the time where I work:  “Show the contours on the Grading Plan, but not on the Site Use Plan.”  The engineers and drafters know what is meant.  It would not be wrong to say, “Show the contour _lines _on the Plan.”  It’s just not necessary in a technical environment.
 
However, if you are speaking to laymen, you would probably want to say “contour lines.”  That’s because the average guy thinks of contours more subjectively - as the general shape of something - not as a line of equal elevation, which is the technical definition.

My conjecture is that the original phrase quoted by *Ilaló* came from a document that originated in (American) English and was transliterated (not translated) into Spanish by a wordy engineer.  I say this because most of the mapping in the world has been made by US agencies.  
 
I notice that there is the article “*la*” in Ilaló’s phrase.  I am uncertain about using articles in Spanish, but in English, I would say it this way:  “. . . the contour lines from *the *1:250.000-scale mapping” In a sentence:  “_The contour lines from the 1:250.000-scale mapping_ do not correlate well to the elevations indicated on the 1:500.000-scale shaded-relief mapping.”  (In this sentence, _Mapping_ = the general body of the effort to make the maps, or all of the maps being referred to; it does not refer to an individual map panel.  Although the word _map_ would also work.)
 
The precision may in fact be warranted depending on the actual document and who is using it.

btw: If the definition of “mythery” includes “knowing just enough to be dangerous,” there would be many, many ways to use that word in my work.  Just thinking of all the review agencies . . .
 
regards, and thanks for your comments!


----------



## ilaló

Thank you, cirrus and h2o-guy.  I wish I had been able to contact you at the time! Unfortunately, that translation has been out of my hands for some time. I have the idea I may have eliminated cartography from that contour phrase, but am not sure -- and would almost rather not look.


----------



## MHCKA

I'm late in this discussion, but maybe could be helpful.

I agree we, the Engineers, use too much words to define a simply thing, but the accuracy in our minds is very important, professional biasing, I guess.

This terms posted by ilaló are related with Topography and Geomatics in Engineering, or Cartography in Geography.

Again agree contour could be understand as the shape of a natural terrain and contour line as his representation on a plane or map. I think contour line it's clear without cartography term. A word which sounds more technical is: isoline. 

I switch to Spanish for the next explanation.

*La* línea de nivel (tomada respecto de un nivel general preestablecido) estará representada en *un* plano o en *una* carta o *un* mapa (generalmente topográfica, que es la base de cualquier sistema de información geográfica). 
En español escala, línea y curva son femeninos (*la*), plano y mapa son masculinos (*el*). 

Respecto del post original:

Protección Proyección Universal Tranversa de Mercator Elipsoide Internacional de 1909 Zona 17 = 
(así no se diría por acá, pero hay que ser fieles a la fuente):

*Universal Transverse Mercator (International 1909 Ellipsoid. Zone 17 )*

Curvas de nivel de la cartografía escala 1:250.000 =

*Contour lines (Isolines) of the Cartography 1:250 000.*

Switch to English.

When you says "de la Cartografía (tendría que ser con mayúscula)" refers to "all the charts/maps available" in a specific scale, in this case 1:250 000.

Actually when use a *UTM *system always is related with a specific *datum*, the word ellipsoid it's correct, but sounds odd for me; you always says: "UTM coordinates, datum NADxx". 

The most common datum is NAD or WGS, I guess the last is NAD83.


----------

