Plate Carre with latitude shift

[Espen Isaksen]

 > EPSG:4326 is a geographic coordinate system, and the coordinates are in
> decimal degrees.  +proj=eqc is a projected coordinate system and the
> coordinates are meters.  The location (-180,90) would be roughly
> (-20000000,100000).
>
> Essentially eqc (ie. equidistant cylindrical or Plate Carree) is just
> a rescaling of EPSG:4326 from degrees to meters.
>

Ok I understand this.

> I'm afraid I just don't get what you hope to accomplish with +lat_ts=60.
> Are you hoping to get one projected meter being one meter on the ground
> at 60N as opposed to it being one meter at the equator as is the default?
> I'm not aware of proj=eqc supporting any such option.

Yes I am trying to change the projection such that it gets less
distorted in areas near the north pole. I tried to set the mapfile
like this:

EXTENT 593674.73 6669772.29 594581.49 6670417.57
PROJECTION
     "+proj=eqc +lat_ts=60 +lon_0=0 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +ellps=WGS84
+datum=WGS84 +no_defs +units=m"
END

which seems to create an quite ok map. Much better than setting
+lat_ts=0. Although I do not understand why Mapserver creates a map
over a different area than what my original decimal degree areas
indicates(I used proj to convert them)?

By the way my original decimal degree coordinates are:
10.6661 59.9155 10.6824 59.9213

Perhaps what I am doing is just nonsense...

Espen