The Southwest Pacific Pollen Atlas is an electronic Atlas of pollen types designed to give an overview of types encountered in the Australian - Malesian area for which no conventional Atlas exists except one for Taiwan. The project is now in a pilot stage, and a test version, containing mangrove taxa, has been sent to collaborators for comment and suggestions.
The Atlas is being developed in the Division of Archaeology and Natural History in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the old department of Biogeography and Geomorphology having been merged with Prehistory and the Quaternary Dating Centre.
The Atlas runs on PC or Mac using Filemaker II, and there is also a Delta (Unix) version. Pollen images are stored as quicktime movies of 4 or 5 views, any one of which can be viewed by sliding a button on the screen. The movies are stored separately from the data file, which currently describes 4600 pollen types. The pollen description has been kept simple on purpose, but a full diagnosis is included as a text. Thus pollen can be quickly found on the basis a few characters. At present each "find" must be looked at sequentially; however a screen of found images (up to 16 at a time) is being developed. Images are not of high quality, but file-size constraint prevents high-resolution scanning at present. We are looking into rapid compression/decompression programs, because when the Atlas contains 12,000 entities it will exceed our goal of containing it on a single CD.
Tagging selected records allows a printed copy of required taxa to be produced. The quality of output from a standard 300 dpi laser printer is quite satisfactory. Current plans for the first issue of the Atlas on CD-ROM are to release it at the end of 1994. If better software is encountered, there may be some delay. Collaborators in the region will send in new taxa for checking and incorporation. Meanwhile image improvements, addition of SEM and other changes will be taking place. The Atlas should thus be upgraded once or twice a year. Cost will be that related to producing and mailing the CD.
The Division has decided to develop jointly a SE Asian-Pacific site database with John Dodson, University of New South Wales and Peter Kershaw, Monash University. Ed Cushing (University of Minnesota), John Flenley, (Massey University) and other active groups will also be involved. We will follow the North American Database format, utilising the 16 groupings of the Atlas plus some additional areas in southeast Asia, to collect all Quaternary sites. Initial lists indicate about 250 sites are completed, not including New Zealand. Tilia files are already constructed for about 70 sites, but standard dictionaries and surface sample files need to be developed. Funding for the data entry is currently being sought.