Explore a New Breed of AtlasesExplore a New Breed of Atlases
When I'm in the mood for armchair exploration I sometimes sit down with an atlas and imagine a journey or look for connections and relations between places. Maps can be remarkable for providing an amazing amount of information graphically in a small space. A new breed of atlases on CD-ROM promises to revolutionize the genre, since CD-ROMs can contain more information and present it in more ways than a book.
The two Small Blue Planet titles feature images of earth taken from space. Ever since I saw the crude maps of America made by 18th-century European cartographers, I've had a vestigial suspicion of traditional maps. How do they know the real shape of Alaska, for instance? With the Real Picture World Atlas (Small Blue Planet), you can see a picture of Alaska taken from space. You start with the globe, zoom in to continents, then further and further, until Alaska fills the screen. It's easy to make out major geographical features such as the Yukon River and the Brooks Range. There's an ingenious magnifying-glass tool that shows a political map in a two-inch circle that you can move around. This is very useful for identifying geographic features. It provides a somewhat frustrating way of searching, as well. To find Baffin Island starting at Alaska, you scroll the main image North and East, then use the little circle to scrutinize possible candidates, looking for the label.
A gallery of about 100 pictures taken with several imaging techniques includes many gorgeous shots of interesting geographic and atmospheric phenomena. These images can also be accessed via a world global relief map. A single-screen world political map indexes articles about each country and a short list of languages for each. You can read and listen to any of a dozen or so phrases in about 70 standard languages. Clicking on Brazil brings up Portuguese, English, Spanish, and German, with no hint that a substantial part of the population speaks one of many indigenous languages, and none of the standard ones. A screen called the Chronosphere is a good animation showing how the pattern of sunlight on the earth changes with the passage of time.
It's a real kick to see your neighborhood from space, as you can with The Cities Below. It contains high-resolution images of 39 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. You select an area by clicking on the city shown on a U.S. map, or in an alphabetically arranged browser. This gives you a mosaic of rectangular images of parts of that city to select from. Once you select an image you can zoom in to the point where large buildings and streets can be resolved. The magnifying-glass tool shows an underlying city map containing names of the bigger streets; it's synchronized better with the satellite image on this title than on the Real Picture World Atlas. The U.S. map shown on the title's main screen is topographical, made from satellite data, and very well done. You can zoom in on it to see more detail.
Green arrows are shown at the edge of city images when there is an adjacent image. You go there by clicking the arrow, then the text label that pops up. It would be more convenient if these images were combined into one big image, to give seamless navigation throughout a city. I would also prefer a world-wide version to this one that's limited to U.S. cities; I would rather see Paris and Beijing than Denver and St. Louis.
An atlas with sound and video
National Geographic's Picture Atlas of the World is more like a conventional atlas. You start with a globe or a world map, click on a continent to get a more detailed map, then on a country to get a map of the country. This is as far as you can go, which is a major drawback. China is about seven inches wide in the largest map of that country. Compared to a top-quality printed atlas, the information on this map is paltry, indeed. The index lets you look up cities and other geographical features, and find them on the maps with a mouse click. You page and scroll through names, but you can't type in a name and search for it. There are small global population and climate maps.
Where this CD-ROM shines is in its multimedia content. It has between 15 and 20 beautiful photos of each country, audio clips of two or three phrases spoken in the country's most popular language, and often a sample of music and a very well produced video clip or two. There's also a short text article and a standard set of statistics about each country. This content engages you, and gives you a better feeling for the flavor of the country in a short time than you'd get from a book.
The Rand McNally Quick Reference Atlas is very much like the National Geographic Picture Atlas of the World, except that it has no multimedia features: no photos, videos, or sound. As with the National Geographic title, you zoom from the world map to a regional map to a country map that has much less detail than a good-quality printed atlas. There's a standard set of statistical, historical and other background information about each country. The index is searchable. There are topographical maps for each major region, and (very small) global climate, economic activity, time zone and population maps.
None of these new products can replace a medium-quality or top-quality printed atlas or a detailed CD-ROM atlas such as DeLorme's Global Explorer. They simply don't have detailed enough maps. The two Small Blue Planet titles aren't intended to, of course. They provide unique experiences and make good use of the CD-ROM medium. The National Geographic and Rand McNally titles are offered as atlas replacements, and might suffice for children through high school. National Geographic's beautiful multimedia features make it by far the superior of the two.
For PC: PC with 4 MB RAM (8 MB preferred), Windows 3.1, SVGA 256 color monitor, mouse
For Mac: Any Macintosh, 4 MB RAM (8MB preferred), System 6.7 or higher, at least a 12" monitor, mouse
For PC: PC with a 20 MHz microprocessor or nhigher with at least 4 MB RAM, Windows 3.1 or higher, DOS 5.0 or higher, monitor with at least 256 colors, double-speed CD-ROM drive
For MAC: System version 6.0.8, 7.0 or higher, 4 MB RAM, color monitor, double-speed CD-ROM drive
For PC: 80386 processor or greater, 4 MB RAM, Windows 3.1 or greater, 256 color graphics, hard drive, CD-ROM drive
For MAC: An LC or greater, 4 MB RAM, System 7.0 or greater, 256 color graphics, hard drive, CD-ROM drive
