Novel Form of Portable Paper Maps Enabling Longitudinal Access

A novel form of portable paper maps is presented, which enables one to get access to longitudinal as well as lateral direction. In this paper, the longitudinal access means "access from the current spread to a spread of south or north." The necessary condition for that capability is that each spread is to be divided by perpendicular folds or binds. Thus, each spread consists of four pages instead of two pages for normal atlases. A rational structure that satisfies the necessary condition is found. The resultant structure of the map is un-expectedly simple and straightforward you just pull down or up the page you want, and it opens the spread you want. According to the form, one piece of printed map can be converted into a compact booklet by conventional book binding processing. Such properties as accessibility, handling, strength, and design range are discussed. INTRODUCTION One of major advantages of the digital maps over paper maps is its accessibility from one address to another address. Either specifying the address or moving a mouse, one can easily get access to his destination. In the case of paper maps, however, a user may get into trouble if he wants to cross the page border into south or north. He has to read the page number of destination and then to flip pages back and forth. There are fewer problems for the foldable paper maps, if he does not care to wrestle of manipulating a large fold-out map.