| When terrorists attacked the London transport network on
7 July, 2005, it took the BBC News 24 team a matter of minutes to prepare
and broadcast a street map of London showing exactly where the bombers had
struck.
The BBC's coverage of 7 July and subsequent 21 July bombings featured
on-air maps produced using Curious Software's Curious World Maps.
Rob Shergold, BBC News 24's Senior Graphic Designer, explains: "Curious
World Maps provided us with a fast and easy way of getting accurate street
maps on air so that viewers could see exactly where the bombs were located."
Launched in 2000, CWM has rapidly gained a reputation amongst broadcasters
for its versatility and ease of use. The speed at which maps can be created
and updated makes it ideal for news and traffic reporting. It also plays
a vital role in the post-production of documentaries, sports and travel
programmes where maps are needed to set the scene or identify an area
of particular interest.
The software, which gives users total creative control, enables them
to quickly and easily create broadcast quality still and animated maps
of anywhere in the world. It includes built-in vector databases of the
whole world comprising detailed outline data for countries, regions, states
and counties. It also includes over 1,000,000 place names covering towns,
mountains and other physical features such as rivers, lakes and roads.
Imported local data or satellite images can also be incorporated, making
it simple to create in minutes an animation than zooms in from a spinning
globe right down to a single building. Many top broadcasters are now using
CWM on a daily basis, including the BBC, Sky, NBC, ABC and CNN.
Shergold adds. "When we bought CWM we also acquired street data
for the UK and USA and Natural Earth (500m). Our intention is to add more
street data covering different countries as and when we need it."
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