Isothermal coordinates

Coordinates $(u,v)$ on an immersed surface are isothermal when the first fundamental form is ${\lambda }^2(d{u}^2+d{v}^2)$ for a positive function $\lambda$.

For a surface of revolution whose induced metric is $g=E(\rho )d{\rho }^2+{\rho }^{2}d{\varphi }^2$, with $\rho >0$ and $E>0$ smooth on a coordinate interval, define $\sigma (\rho )={\int }_{{\rho }_{\ast }}^{\rho }\sqrt{E(r)}dr/r$. Then ${\sigma }^{\prime }>0$ and the conformal factor ${\rho }^{-1}$ gives ${\rho }^{-2}g=d{\sigma }^2+d{\varphi }^2$. This proves the rescaled metric is locally the Euclidean metric without solving a curvature equation. Poles and places where $\rho$ is not a coordinate must be treated in other charts; the angular coordinate is also understood locally.