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145 of 146 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Maps, Mediocre Software, December 13, 2002
One can hardly question the value of these maps. This collection claims to include 535 maps, going all the way back to the 19th century, published by National Geographic magazine. In itself, this is a real treasure.However, the software realization of this treasure is poor. The software is slow and glitchy, prone to crashes and inexplicable error messages. The main window is a relatively tiny 640x480 pixels, although the maps themselves can be zoomed fullscreen. The working interface is clumsy and reminiscent of old "multimedia" software from a Windows 95 machine. The initial workspace is an image of a compass, a book, a videotape. Want to start searching for maps? Well, take a guess, because there are no text labels, no text tool-tips, and no drop down menus. There is a toolbar with tool-tips, but no text labels. I would have preferred a plain-vanilla menu over faux-elegant images that leave me stymied. The set comes on 8 CD's. While the program will run with any disc in the CD drive, you can expect a lot of disc swapping. Also, it would have been nice to be able to at least start the search engine with no disc in the drive. There is no option for copying the CD data to your hard drive, which would have been a welcome choice for users with large drives. Maps appear to be scans of the paper product from National Geographic, complete with fold-creases and dog-ears. These are not digital databases that generate maps on the fly, such as can be found in software like Topo USA or Streets and Trips. No, these are simply pictures of the paper maps. Great maps, but in a digital application, a picture of a piece of paper is of limited value. For example, if a place-name is not entered into the index, searches come up blank -- even if the place appears on one or more maps. Likewise, common tools of map software such as distance measuring, or incremental zooming, are missing. The software allows you five zoom levels for your map. Since the first two levels are little more than thumbnails, really, you are left with three usable zooms. Even the middle zoom is too small to read place-names. Some kind of fractional or incremental zoom tool would have been much nicer; even basic image software allows you to zoom is by single percentage points. The scan quality could be better. There is noticable pixelization at high resolution -- blocky fuzziness, especially around text areas. However, since there are over 500 high-resolution maps taking up 8 CD's, clearly some data compression had to be used. The map tools aren't terribly sophisticated; you can zoom, pan, and select regions for copying to the clipboard (copied sections can be pasted into Paint or other image application). All that said, this 8 disc set delivers a tremendous map value .... I estimate the cost per map at something like a nickel -- an amazing value. The older maps offer unique historical perspectives into changing geopolitics. The maps are excellent quality, and come with a tremendous amount of "extras" on the map backs (which are also viewable) and sidebars. Clearly the software implementation could have been better. But for this price, I think the set is a steal.
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