Historical Atlas of South India in Digital Forma
Frederic BORNE
Head of Geomatic Lab
IFP, French Institute of Pondicherry,
Email: borne@ifpindia.org
F. Borne
Head of Geomatic Lab
IFP, French Institute of Pondicherry
Email: borne@ifpindia.org
D.Balusubramanian
IT Specialist
IFP, French Institute of Pondicherry
Email: balu.d@ifpindia.org
There are available some printed versions of historical atlas to narrate and explain the history of certain parts of the world and also that of South Asia. The present project, on the other hand, aims at presenting the history of the southern part of India from prehistory to 1600 CE in digital form using GIS technology. The presentation is made under certain major themes like political, social, cultural, etc. and uses a combination of maps, photographs, illustrations, and texts. The atlas draws information from a database of more than 20,000 records containing each 15 to 30 fields.
The atlas is planned to be used both on CD and WEB using SVG format (W3C). The web page allows all the basic GIS functionalities like zoom in, zoom out, pan, distance measuring, scale, tool tip, text and image link, and querying. This web application will give easy access to varied historical data and can be used as a powerful research tool, besides of course as a pedagogic tool.
The prototype can be accessed on
http://www.ifpindia.org/histatlas/atlas.html