On June 20th, 2016 the moment arrived to unveil the new Atlas of Switzerland (AoS):
Simone Niggli-Luder (orienteering athlete and multiple world champion), Sarah Springman (Rector of the ETH Zurich), Marc Chardonnens (Director of the Federal Office for the Environment). (Foto AG)AoS Version 4
The new Atlas of Switzerland AoS is (since 2000) already version 4.
“The AoS is mandated by law by the Swiss Federation to visualize themes from different fields such as socio-economy, ecology, history and energy, etc. in an ongoing long-term project. Since its beginning in 1961, the aim of this Swiss national atlas is to offer cartographically sound maps in combination with additional information to the general public in order to visualize visible and hidden structures and processes.” (Source: Atlas of Switzerland goes online and 3D – Concept, Architecture and Visualization. Methods. René Sieber, Marianna Serebryakova, Raimund Schnürer, Lorenz Hurni. EuroCarto 2015)
Version 4 is a step forward. It
– is based on a platform open for third parties’ products,
– is available online and
– presents information on a globe model and in 3D.
Platform
The AtlasPlatformSwitzerland (APS) is the architectural framework for future AoS products. It also offers the possibility to publish affiliated atlases from other institutions; one example is the Hydrological Atlas of the University of Bern.
Online
After downloading the client software (for te moment Windows only), thematic maps can be selected from the online archive and viewed.
Besides the navigation in the Atlas itself an easy access to these maps is also given on AoS’ Website:
Presentation
And here comes the fascinating part of the new Atlas: The presentation based on an earth model and also in 3D.
“The core of this APS – the so-called APSglobe – consists of a 3D virtual globe (osgEarth) with basic tools for navigation, visualization, and querying.” (http://www.atlasderschweiz.ch/portfolio/).
A globalized example shows the flights from Zurich in 3D:
Another map presents population density in two and three-dimensional views:
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Drilldowns show settlement structures (here the train station Bern) with the possibility of navigating through cities and of changing perspectives:
Hydrological Atlas
On the same Atlas Platform, the University of Bern publishes its Hydrological Atlas of Switzerland using all the possibilities of navigating and presentation.
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More maps: Statistical Atlas of Switzerland
There’s another Atlas with hundreds of thematic maps based on statistics:
More about Statatlas in the –> Leporello
Blog about Stats 