Digital map making: MSNBC uses 3D maps to pinpoint international news events. (broadcast).

A few months ago, most US citizens had never heard of Kabul or Kandahar, or even knew the geographic location of Afghanistan, the country in which these cities are located. When Operation Enduring Freedom placed these areas in the spotlight, it became imperative for news broadcasters to educate viewers about the lay of the land so they could better understand unfolding events. At MSNBC, the news team used detailed 3D animated maps to dynamically illustrate these far-flung locations for both its live news and taped programming.

"Our 3D animated globes with full topography are far more effective and compelling to the viewer than a flat, 2D still map," explains Lori Neuhardt, head of graphics at MSNBC.

To create its animated maps, the television network uses Curious Software's World Maps package running on a PC-based system. Built into the software are licensed vector databases of the entire world and actual relief data. When combined with imported data or satellite images, users can create, for instance, an animation of a spinning globe that zooms right into a specific region. "With the Curious system, we can create a 3D still map in 2 to 3 minutes," says Neuhardt.

After a request for a particular map is placed, the MSNBC graphics team finds the general location within the database of maps (world, US, European, etc.), calls up the country, then specifies the city or region. If a map of the area has been previously created, such as for Afghanistan, the group can quickly reload the earlier project and make the necessary alterations.

Prior to using Curious World Maps, Neuhardt and her staff created maps with Quantel's Paintbox. "We had to research and grab the topography for every region ahead of time from CD-ROMs or other sources, then we had to manually look through an arias to find each location," Neuhardt explains. "A 2D topographical still map with several specific locations could take as long as 10 to 20 minutes to build and involved a lot of guesswork. If we didn't have the topography for that specific region ahead of time, the process could take as long as 30 to 45 minutes. With the Curious maps, we get the topography and correct location instantly."

Creating a 3D animated globe without the Curious system was even more time-consuming, because the insufficient image data had to be transferred into the network's 3D software and then into a 2D ...