In the listing of hits, a 3D hot link allows a user to display content in a three dimensional landscape. Use of the advanced visualization tools is an option. When a visualization is requested by the user, a landscape appears with buildings and clusters of structures representing the hits returned by the query. The graphics quality is excellent. The height of a structure and the density of structures provide visual clues to potentially useful sources of information about a query.
Individual structures are highly detailed.
When one flys over the landscape, a balloon appears with the name of the site associated with a particular structure. These messages were consistently helpful and unobtrusive. The landscape can be navigated using a standard mouse. No training is required to fly over the landscape, zoom to a cluster of data, or jump from one part of the map to another. Applications of the tool range from indexing an organization's internal content to providing a visual interface to a highly specialized collection of content.