The longimeter is a device for measuring the length of a river, road, or other continuous curve on a map. An explanation of how it works can be found in Hugo Steinhaus's "Mathematical Snapshots".
This page contains postscript files for the three longimeter grids. To use them, download the files, print the files out on a laser printer, and then make overhead transparancies of the grids. This grid is setup so that the length in inches is given by the count of squares in the three grids divided by 7.64. Realize that the results will be more accurate as the total count increases. For a typical curve with a total count of 50 squares or more, you should be able to get a length good to about 5%. Please let me know if you need the files in some other format (such as PDF or .GIF.) I'd be happy to hear from anyone that finds these files useful.
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