A synchronoptic view is a graphic display of a number of entities as they proceed through time. A synchronoptic view can be used for many purposes, but is best suited as visual displays of history. A number of related timelines can be drawn on a single chart, showing which events and lives are contemporary and which are unconnected.
A synchronoptic view has important educational advantages. Visible information is much more easily learned, than when it is presented only in pure text form. History is an ideal subject for a synchronoptic view. Multiple timelines are able to show how events interacted. Multiple lifelines can show which people were contemporaries.
(See example)
A combination of maps is also synchronoptic when it displays successive moments in time.
Etymology
The concept in question is made visual — hence optic.
The elements are displayed synchronously: i.e., which events in one area happened at the same time as events in another seemingly unrelated area.
Thus synchron-optic.
Synchronoptic also means visible at the same time", or "with parallel views". i.e., The user gets a view of all the information in one go.
Carte chronographique
Carte chronographique (1753)
Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg (1709–1779) was the first to develop a synchronoptical visualisation with his Chronographie universelle & details qui en dependent pour la Chronologie & les Genealogies (1753) abbreviated to Carte chronographique.[1] The chronograph chart consisted of 35 prints which were designed to be stuck together in a row, enabling 6,500 years to be represented in 6.5 metres (21 ft).[1] The horizontal axis representing the passage of time was consistent throughout, but the vertical axis was varied depending on the categories Barbeu-Dubourg considered relevant for that period of history.[1]
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