Visual Thesaurus 3

By Dale Farris, Vice-President Golden Triangle PC Club February 2005 General Overview Visual Thesaurus 3 is a 3D interactive reference tool, powered by Thinkmap, that gets students of all ages excited about words. Using the unique visualization technology of Thinkmap, Inc., the Visual Thesaurus takes a unique, and remarkably beautiful, approach to presenting the results of a word lookup. Visual Thesaurus creates an animated display of words and meanings — a visual representation of the English language. The Thinkmap visualization places your word in the center of the display, connected to related words and meanings. You can then click on these words or meanings to explore further. The Visual Thesaurus moves beyond strictly synonyms to display and animate connections among word definitions, multiple word meanings, and even antonyms. A user can broaden and narrow search interactively by selecting parts of speech or type of relationship among the words displayed. Color, shape, and rollover displays enhance both the usefulness and beauty of its visual representation of the English language. Visual Thesaurus provides guidance and inspiration for anyone interested in words and conversation — writers, professionals, and students. Through its emphasis on exploration and vocabulary building, the Visual Thesaurus improves reading, writing and communication skills. Available to both institutions and individuals, the Visual Thesaurus product can be downloaded, ordered as a CD-ROM, and purchased as a Web-based subscription. More information about the Visual Thesaurus is available at www.visualthesaurus.com. Besides that, working with this sophisticated program is just way cool! When you first start the program and look up a word, you are provided with results unlike any other related program, and certainly unlike any other existing hard copy thesaurus. Also, once you start working with this fascinating program, be prepared to set aside a lot of time, because it will be very hard to break away from this unusual, creative approach to learning more about your words of interest. You can set the program to display the results in 2D or even 3D mode. In 3D mode, you can click and drag the words around and you can just move the mouse to rotate all the other words up or down, left or right. You can double-click on the small circles that represents each word which will open up other words related to the double-clicked word. Once you begin to work with the many cool features of this program, do not be surprised to find yourself immersed for hours in its beautiful, clever way of displaying information. The THINKMAP, Inc. company should be commended by all in the information technology industry for conceiving and carrying out this extraordinary, visual approach to a thesaurus. Visual Thesaurus moves beyond strictly synonyms to display and animate connections among word definitions, multiple word meanings, and even antonyms. A user can broaden and narrow search interactively by selecting parts of speech or type of relationship among the words displayed. Color, shape, and rollover displays enhance both the usefulness and beauty of its visual representation of the English language. Visual Thesaurus provides guidance and inspiration for anyone interested in words and conversation — writers, professionals, and students. Through its emphasis on exploration and vocabulary building, Visual Thesaurus improves reading, writing and communication skills. What's New in Version 3? Now, 5,000 more words and 115,000 meanings Both British and American English pronunciations of words Spell checking Now, 17, instead of 14 choices of American or British spellings Start an Internet search from your word, including images and Web pages Back and forward buttons Two (2) print formats to choose from More than 20 keyboard shortcuts Now includes more than 39,000 proper nouns Adds three (3) new relationship types for finer control of navigation Four levels of content filtering Lock content filters Use presets to quickly choose from among three display modes How To Use the Visual Thesaurus Here are 6 basic steps on how to use the Visual Thesaurus. The Center - The Visual Thesaurus displays words and meanings that are related to the item in the center of the display. The Toolbar - Search for words, view word suggestions, see search history, and change preferences settings from the toolbar. Forward/Back buttons provide easy navigation. Help tips are always available. Words - Click on a word to bring it to the center. Click on the speaker icon to hear the word spoken. Surrounding the word are words and meanings that are related to it. Meanings - Roll your mouse over a meaning to learn more about it. Click on a meaning to bring it to the center. Settings - Click on the Settings menu to personalize font size, types of relationships shown, content filtering, special keyboard shortcuts, and more. Special Features - Printing, spell checking, Internet image and web page search are all available. Representing the English Language Visual Thesaurus is a visual representation of the English Language. To understand Visual Thesaurus, it is important to think more concretely about how we use language, and especially the relationship between words and meanings. Many words have multiple meanings (sometimes also called senses). The word train, for example, has sixteen meanings. It can mean "prepare for a future task or career," or can also mean "a line of railway cars coupled together." Visual Thesaurus displays these meanings as individual circles connected to the word train. The circles represent the meanings What is interesting is that the word train is not in and of itself a noun or a verb. It is the individual meanings of train that belong to a particular part of speech. For example, the concept of a "line of railway cars coupled together" is a noun, while "to prepare for a future task or career" is a verb. For this reason, the circles in Visual Thesaurus representing meanings are color coded to indicate their different parts of speech. Just as a word can have many meanings, a meaning or sense, can be expressed using multiple words. For instance, "to prepare for a future task or career" can be expressed by not only the word train, but also prepare, educate, and develop. The words associated with the same meaning are all synonyms, and therefore belong to the same synset. In Visual Thesaurus, words that belong to a synset are connected to their shared meaning by solid lines. Meanings can be expressed by multiple words. To see the words that make up a synset, mouse roll over a meaning, and the words that constitute the synset will highlight. In addition to highlighting, the definition of the meaning will appear, with example phrases when available. You just mouse roll over a meaning to view its definition. Visual Thesaurus can show more than just synonyms. It also reveals the relationships between meanings. By clicking on the meaning "a line of railway cars coupled together," the meaning moves to the center of the Visual Thesaurus and related meanings appear. Connections between meanings are displayed as dashed lines. You can mouse roll over these lines to view the nature of relationship between two meanings. For instance, when you mouse roll over the line connecting "a fast train that only stops at a few stations" to "a line of railway cars," you see that an express train is a type of train. Similarly, by rolling over the line connecting "a line of railway cars" to the meaning "transporting passengers or mail or freight," you can see that a train is a type of public transport. Express train is a narrower, or more specific term than train, which is in turn narrower than public transport. Mouse roll over dashed lines between meanings to view the type of relationship connecting them. The Narrower Terms Compass, which appears in the lower right corner of the display whenever broader or narrower terms are displayed, always points in the direction of narrower terms. Operational Features The Desktop Edition of Visual Thesaurus brings the program to your computer. Available as either a download or a hybrid CD-ROM that can be used with both Macintosh and Windows, the Desktop Edition of Visual Thesaurus is easy to install, and can be used even if you are not connected to the Internet. The Desktop Edition is a perfect gift, bringing Visual Thesaurus's unique display of words to your friends and family. The Visual Thesaurus is a dictionary and thesaurus with an intuitive interface to encourage exploration and learning. Available in both a Desktop Edition and an Online Edition, the Visual Thesaurus is a terrific way to improve your understanding of the English Language. With both versions of the Visual Thesaurus, you can: Find the right word and explore. The Visual Thesaurus has over 145,000 English words and 115,000 meanings. Search for the word you're looking for and then follow a trail of related concepts. Improve your grasp of the English language. The Visual Thesaurus's intuitive interface helps you find words through their semantic relationship with other words and meanings. Its focus on connecting words through their meanings results in more precise understanding. Hear words pronounced correctly. (Internet connection necessary) The Visual Thesaurus offers a choice between a British and an American English accent. Understand the relationships between English words and meanings. In addition to synonyms, the Visual Thesaurus shows 16 kinds of semantic relationships. You can see that a nose is part of a face, that a horned poppy is a type of flower, and that epinephrine is a type of vasoconstrictor. Expand your search to the Internet. From any word, you can initiate an Internet search for either web pages or images. Check your spelling. The Visual Thesaurus suggests alternatives so you can find the right word even when you're not sure of the spelling. Personalize your experience. The Visual Thesaurus allows you fine control over your settings. You control font size, the types of relationships that are available, content filtering, and more. Filter Content. Both the Desktop and the Online Edition allow you to filter content at four different levels. Typical Uses of the Program Visual Thesaurus is an ideal software package for building skills in vocabulary, reading, and writing. Students find it playful and are quickly engaged, learning through their exploration of the English language. Anyone interested in the English language will be fascinated by this powerful, cleverly designed program that is amazing. All writers, researchers, editors, and anyone intrigued by constructing meaningful writing will want to give serious consideration to this important program. Visual Thesaurus is also a sure bet for all libraries, especially larger libraries that may be supporting a greater customer group of writers. Install and Setup Installation of the program should work smoothly and present no problems. As you install the program, you will be able to set filtering if you wish, or turn off all filtering. This is also a setting that you can later change in the program. This filtering means you can set the program to not display words that may offend certain viewers, and the program presents 3 levels of filtration. This is a nice feature for families with small children, or public or school libraries that choose to offer this fine program to their customers. Recommendations Visual Thesaurus is one of the most exciting, dynamic programs you will likely ever work with. At the very reasonable price, all educators, students, writers, and researchers will want to get their own copy of this amazing program. Or, if you prefer, you can also consider starting an annual subscription to the online version of the program. You will work with the program online as you work with the program installed on a desktop. Price $  29.95 (plus shipping / handling) CD ROM edition (free shipping/handling when you order two or more) $  19.95 Individual Annual Online Subscription $    2.95 Individual Monthly Online Subscription System Configuration Requirements Windows Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP 128MB RAM 100 MB free hard disk space Mac Machines OS X 128MB RAM 100MB free hard disk space About THINKMAP, Inc. Thinkmap, Inc. develops and markets software that uses visualization to facilitate communication, learning, and discovery. The company specializes in user interfaces and visualization mechanisms that allow end-users to more effectively browse and understand complex information. Thinkmap, Inc. was founded in 1997 as Plumb Design Inc. In 2004, the company changed their name to Thinkmap to better capitalize on growing demand for their visualization solutions based on the Thinkmap platform. Thinkmap has developed a history of solving complex information problems in a variety of different enterprise and consumer environments. Thinkmap’s customers now include leaders in industry and government like 3M, General Dynamics, Motorola, NASA Ames Research Center, Pfizer, and Sony Music. Thinkmap's education products, namely the award-winning Visual Thesaurus, are available through educational resellers and direct from the Visual Thesaurus site. Thinkmap is backed by GFT Technologies and Motorola Ventures. Contact Michael Freedman, CEO THINKMAP, Inc. 157 Chambers Street New York, New York 10007 212-285-8600 FAX 212-285-8999 mfreedman@thinkmap.com www.thinkmap.com www.visualthesaurus.com