Launched in March 2003 by the MBC Group, Al Arabiya aims to deliver news to audiences throughout the Arab world. It broadcasts hourly bulletins and in-depth analytical programmes to all the GCC countries, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, South East Asia, North Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australia.

From the outset, Al Arabiya embraced state of the art broadcast technology as a means of delivering the highest quality programming to its viewers. Given its global remit, it was imperative that the station had at its disposal a quick and easy method of illustrating news bulletins with accurate maps.

"Maps are one of the most effective ways of illustrating news stories because they immediately focus the viewer's attention on where the action is taking place," explains Fadi Rida Radi, head of the News Graphics section that is responsible for providing all the On Air graphics for the MBC Group and the Al Arabiya channel. "This is particularly important for a station like Al Arabiya, which covers news events from around the world and broadcasts to audiences in many different geographical locations."

Breaking news waits for no man; especially not broadcast graphics departments who are responsible for creating the maps needed to illustrate them. If a plane goes down or a terrorist bomb explodes, the news team wants a map showing where the action happened immediately, not in a few hours when someone in graphics has had a chance to copy it from an Atlas.

Yet in many television stations, copying or photographing maps from an Atlas is still the most common way of creating these illustrations. It's laborious, time-consuming and ultimately not very accurate. And it is almost impossible to convey station identity or branding via a map that is effectively drawn by hand.

Introduced in 2000, Curious Software's Curious World Maps aims to put an end to these problems by giving on-air graphics teams an easy and cost effective way of creating broadcast quality maps. Its success has been remarkable. Not only has it won a UK Queen's Award for Innovation, but in just a few years it has revolutionized map creation throughout the industry and has been embraced by the graphics departments of some of the world's biggest broadcasters including CNN, ABC, BBC, Sky, CBC and many more.

Fadi Rida Radi says Curious World Maps was already being used by the MBC channel and was therefore an obvious choice for Al Arabiya.

"We knew Curious World Maps would be an important system for Al Arabiya because it offered more features than any of its competitors. With Curious World Maps we can customise the style of our maps, allowing us to produce illustrations that are unique to the station. We also have complete control over colours, textures, fonts, label styles, road and street styles, relief, sea textures, lighting, shadows and many other features. These settings can be saves as templates to guarantee consistency of look and station branding."

In addition to producing stunning map images, Curious World Maps has sophisticated multi-layered animation facilities enabling users to add any number of overlays, video clips, movies and text and animate everything with the World Maps animation timelines. Entire animations can be saved as part of a house style, making it easy to apply a complete multi-layered animation treatment to any new map location.

From simple reveals and write-ons to full-blown sequences flying viewers from outer space to street level, Curious World Maps' animation facilities allow complete control over every parameter. Using this software, broadcasters can show the world in conventional symbolic mapping styles or as topographically-precise real-world scenery - or both at the same time. There is also a 3D Map Animator option, making it possible to fly through mountain scenery over a landscape combining 3D contours, satellite photography and a choice of map symbols, place names and features. Curious World Maps allows broadcasters to animate fluidly from a stylised 2D map to a three-dimensional visualisation of terrain with every contour accurately rendered - all without touching a specialist 3D program. Alternatively, if the user wants topographical data for a 3D animation package, World Maps can export to Maya, 3D Studio Max, and other major 3D programs.

Curious World Maps ships complete with built-in databases of the whole world showing political and physical features, more than 500,000 place names, relief data, natural earth colour and ocean contours. There are also optional local data sets, high-resolution DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data, and the facility to import the users' own satellite image sources.

Fadi Rida Radi believes that one of the main advantages of Curious World Maps is its ease of operation. "Our graphics team were able to get to grips with it very quickly, which is very important in a news environment where workflow is not only fast but also has to be accurate. Everything was so clear and straightforward that the new graphics staff that were hired to work on Al Arabiya mastered it very quickly and were producing broadcast quality maps in just a few days. We also invested in Curious World Maps Satellite Imagery option, which is a must in news and media these days. As a company, Curious has been constantly developing this aspect of its software and we now have access to a wide range of satellite imagery, which gives us an edge because we were the first broadcaster in the region to have it on our map graphics."

Radi adds that Curious World Maps has integrated well with other software packages regularly used in the graphics department. "It generates still maps and animated sequences in all the major formats - at both standard and high definition. You can easily output multiple format versions of the same material and it exports to all our play-out machines. We have also found that you can take 3D mesh with DEM and use this in any 3D machine to incorporate 3D objects. This has opened up an entirely new dimension in television, especially when it is used with VIZrt Software, which gives us 3D in real time. And of course Curious World Maps comes with its own 3D animator, which is also very fast and easy to use."

Al Arabiya's graphics department are now such firm fans of Curious World Maps that they are working with the company to help develop new aspects of the software, particularly those connected to its use in a networked environment.

"Like all software, there are always features that could be improved. For example, it is still based on rendering, whereas a lot of systems on the market use Real Time rendering," Radi says.

Since acquiring Curious World Maps, Radi and his team have been using the software on a number of external projects such as creating new channels and revamping existing channels in the region.

"We've recommended Curious World Maps to these clients because we believe it is a worthwhile investment," he adds. "We gave external clients training with the software and within a few days they were very comfortable with it and were happily creating animated maps that look very sophisticated indeed. Part of the reason why Curious is so easy to use is because it relies on market user interfaces that most people are familiar with, so if you understand timeline motion programmes you can easily deal with the Curious timeline."

Support from software manufacturers is always vital and Radi says he is delighted with the help Al Arabiya staff have received from Curious Software's developers in London.

"We've built up a great relationship with the company and it's nice to know they are always on hand if we need them - and that they appreciate our feedback as much as we appreciate their help," he says.

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