FAQ: Atlas
Zoom Atlas
What am I looking at on this map? What can I see?
The default view is a blend of satellite imagery and the ZoomAtlas map. This blend can be adjusted with the slider bar on the right side of the map.
The imagery you see is a still picture taken by a satellite far above the earths surface. Pretty cool, huh?
The ZoomAtlas map is drawn by us and by you! It consists mostly of roads, railroads, waterways, and millions of shapes we call properties. We started by drawing tiny properties at every location we know about. These may be just a house with a grass lawn, a commercial building with an asphalt parking lot, or an urban building surrounded by sidewalk. Some are more complex and reflect the real world.

What are the features I see drawn? Who drew them?
The most detailed and life-like regions of the map were created by contributors like yourself. Every day people such as yourself used the editing tools to draw properties that are bound by a property line and have various features drawn on them to represent what is on that property. You will see shingles that represent a building, flowers that represent a garden, or bricks that represent a patio.
For the most part the map is made up of representations of houses, but if you find a house or neighborhood someone put care into, it is a realistic depiction of the real world. You can help us make the whole map represent the real world by drawing your house or neighborhood .

What are the buttons and controls on this map?
Labels: Street names, business titles and other words, things we call labels, will appear on your map. These labels should help provide context to the map. If you don't recognize the labels, you are probably in the wrong spot!
If you want to turn them off you can click the Labels Off which you can click again to the labels turn back on.

Edit map: Push the edit map button to go to the map editor, where you can make changes to the map and add properties to the map.

Slider bars: The slider along the left edge of the map allows you to zoom in and out, revealing more detail or lager regions of the map.
The slider along the right edge of the map allows you to fade between the satellite imagery and the map view.

Magnifying Glass and Zoomed Region: The magnifying glass icon in the center of the map can be used to get a close look at something without losing the context of the larger map. Slide the map so that the region you want to see closer is in the center of the magnifying glass. The region under magnification will be shown with great detail in the box on the bottom right.
You can hide this feature by clicking the minus sign next to the zoomed region. The sign will turn into a plus sign that you can later use to recover the magnification feature.

What are all of those shapes on the map you call properties?
A property is typically a piece of land with a single purpose. Whenever possible, these properties should coincide with zoned properties in the real world, as in single-family residences, multi-family buildings, commercial properties, government properties, houses of worship, etc. They can also be parks, cemeteries, tracts of undeveloped land, and public squares.

Where is the address or place I searched for?
Right under that magnifying glass! You can zoom in to get a closer look.
If you have panned away by dragging the map, you will need to pan back, or you might need to search for it again.

Why did my search bring me to the middle of nowhere?
If you searched for a location we do not have in our database, the search will return no results and place you in the middle of the country. That does not mean the place does not exist in real life, it just means we don't know about it yet. If you encounter this, you can try a few things:

1. Go back to the search page and make sure you entered the right address. Try to make use of the Autofill feature we provide.
2. Try searching for something nearby, such as another number on the street, or a close-by landmark. When you find that place, you can drag the map until you find your desired location.

The property I am looking for is in the wrong place! Now what?
It probably seems weird that the satellite image shows just what you expect, but the drawings are off. Sometimes this happens. Our database makes an estimate about where to put each property based on the house number and length of road section. If one of your neighbors is hogging a lot of land, those calculations might not be entirely accurate. You can edit the map to move the property to the correct location. By the way, if it is you who has all the land, I didn't mean hogging in a bad way. Let me know next time you have a barbecue, OK?

I can see it on the map, but there is no drawing. What do I do now?
Although we tried to collect every address and location in the country, there are still places that we don't even know about. You probably can see what you are looking for on our satellite images, but there may not be a property or label nearby with the correct house number or place name. That means it is not represented in the ZoomAtlas database. Before you can post a note to that location, you need to create it using the Map Editor.

How do I edit the map I am viewing?
Click the Edit Map button in the upper-right corner of the map. This will bring you to a new page with drawing and editing controls.

Article
What is the article?
The article gives an overview of the associated property. For interesting information, we depend on the contribution of people who know about the house, business or park, etc. This is a great way to share information beyond a property's location and physical attributes . and demonstrate your historical, factual and trivial knowledge.

What should I add to the article?
Add whatever you think others might like to know. For instance, if you lived in a house you believed was haunted, warn the rest of us! Or if you know a great picnic spot in a park, let us know!

How do I edit the text of an article?
1. Click Edit this Article, the link at the top of the text article. An editing box will be displayed in place.
2. Type text to create or edit an article. Use the editing tools with icons at the top of the window. The text is entered in Wiki Markup Language. For a complete reference please see the Wikipedia article Wikipedia:How to edit a page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_edit).

Who approves the contents of the article?
We do! We expect you will follow our terms of use , but we also monitor user contributions to try and protect our users.

At a Glance
What is At A Glance?
It summarizes the primary information about a property. Depending upon the type of property you have chosen, the At a Glance box may have different information fields. Feel free to add information for all kinds of properties.

How do I modify the information in the At a Glance box?
1. Click on the Edit link next to each piece of information and you will be allowed to type or select a new value for that field.
2. Click on OK or hit Enter, to save your changes.

What kind of Photo do you want me to add?
You can add any photo you have, but preferably one that prominently displays the house or building. While we are sure you are quite pleasant looking, we don't necessarily want photos of just you. This will give others an idea of what the building would look like if they were there. And if they ever were, it might help jog their memory.

I cannot remember the exact features of my old house. Should I approximate or leave it alone?
If there is no data yet, please give an approximation. However, if someone has already entered data, please do not change it unless you are sure.

Tabs
What are the tabbed options? How do I actually post a note?
These modules in the right column are there to help you find and converse with other users of ZoomAtlas. This is where you read and post notes at your old homes, schools and hangouts. There are several types of notes you can post. It is perfectly OK to post multiple notes at a single location if, for example, you want to be found by others and you are looking for specific people.

My Places: Let the world know you spent time at a place under the My Places tab. There are fields to indicate whether you lived, worked or played in a property, the years that you spent there, and a note to provide additional details.

Invite: Send a message to someone that invites them to check out the ZoomAtlas map.

Find: Look for a person under the Find tab. Post the persons name, why you associate them with this property and a personal note.

Discuss: Participate in general discussion about the property under the Discuss tab.

That weird kid from high school with the funny ears posted a note for me. Can I delete the note without letting him know that I saw it?
Yes. We routinely delete notes for a variety of reasons. If you want a note removed, just contact us at report_abuse@zoomatlas.com, verify your identity, and we will quickly remove it without any fanfare. It will be our little secret!

I am getting ready for my trip to Canton, OH, and these notes are littering the map. I never lived in Canton, so how do I get rid of all these notes that I don't care about?
You can dismiss individual notes, forever, by clicking the 'x' in the upper-right corner, but the best way to control unwanted notes is to go to your profile page, create a life timeline that includes the cities where you lived, worked or went to school and also the years you were in each place. If you register and set up your Life Path, the only notes that will appear on the map will be those that match the times and places in your life.



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