But they are frustratingly rigid in their presentation, preventing us from making new connections and comparisons by simple scale changes, or changes of plot variable. Individual groups with a collection of stations have often produced efficient plot software. Those who have major ocean-going projects have thus developed their own systems. Some of these, like the acquisition and plot programs of the Oceanographic Data Facility group at Scripps, or the section contouring applications developed by Dean Roemmich and Lynne Talley, are remarkably facile. These systems are currently on Sun desktop systems.
Electronic atlases are a slightly different concept.
Part of the goal was to make the first extensive set of potential vorticity maps. These and other 'expert' systems, now typically on UNIX workstations, will remain the key tool of the deep-sea oceanographer. Nevertheless there are many who do not spend their full time overseeing such data sets, yet need to use them just as one needs an atlas. And one wants the data 'in entirety', without degradation of accuracy, not an internal report synopsis or the output of an inverse calculation of uncertain quality. We at last have been given the power to examine hydrographic and tracer data without building a massive effort of computing and plotting.