By Ether DataRequest data sample
Interactive publication
Back to the catalogue
GlobalCase 10 of 12

Polar singularities

Near the North/South poles, longitude lines converge to a point; planar buffering and equirectangular projections badly distort cell shape and area right at the pole cells.

Class
Case to account for
Affects
4 conversions
01

Detection

Cell centroid or boundary latitude within a few degrees of ±90°.

02

Mitigation

01
Use geodesic (great-circle) buffering, never planar, near poles
02
Flag and manually review any cell whose boundary vertices approach ±90° latitude
03

Affected conversions

H3exact polygon
OPEN
H3inscribed circle
OPEN
H3circumscribed circle
OPEN
Point+radiusH3
OPEN