Professor Brent Hecht of the University of Minnesota introduces Atlasify:
In Hecht’s announcement on the GroupLens blog, he describes Atlasify as “a system that lets you make a map of almost anything.”
And when Hecht says “anything,” he means it. The examples he demonstrated during a recent interview with CS&E ranged from “badminton” and “country music” to “World War II” and “Star Trek.” Additionally, he showed many more sample queries that he and his team have set up on the Atlasify homepage so users can see the search engine in action.
Unlike many popular search engines that generate a list of hyperlinks, each Atlasify query generates its own, unique interactive heat map for users to explore.
“Atlasify allows you to create maps there are no atlases for,” said Hecht. “For example, there isn’t an atlas for ‘ice hockey,’ but we can make one—in fact, we made one.”
(University of Minnesota’s Computer Science & Engineering newsletter)
I mucked about with it for a few minutes. It’s a neat concept that needs some refinement. For example, the Geography category is … too political. That is, information is mapped to political boundaries, rather than discovering a more information context. In the below sample, I asked for the Geography of Iron Ore. Here in Minnesota, iron ore is a big part of our history, but only up in the Arrowhead section of the state, in the northeast; the mined material would then be sent to Duluth for shipping. So I’d like to see a gradation of the green (indicating ‘relatedness’) from northeast to southwest. The difference on the map from Minnesota to North Dakota is misleading at best.
Or here is a Geography of oil production:
But these are recommendations for refinements, not condemnations. I look forward to seeing how the project evolves and how the bright and creative reach out and make this a useful tool in their own endeavours.
