Abstract

The combination of decreasing hardware costs and increasing computer capabilities can turn every geoscientist's desktop computer into a multimedia publishing center. Multimedia is no longer a "cost of millions, cast of thousands" proposition. A laptop computer, an LCD projector, and a digital camera make personal multimedia presentations possible in any setting.

Multimedia not only adds value and immediacy to geologic presentations, but also facilitates the "transfer" in technology transfer. Through the use of low cost, high-tech equipment every geoscientist can create high-impact presentations and lectures, digital brochures, advertisements, and prospect descriptions that come alive with sound, color, animation, humor, and interactivity. With multimedia, the message can be made to speak for itself, even to non-English-speaking audiences. The key to this multimedia magic is the easy-to-use software that makes it possible for anyone to create vivid, highly professional presentations in a short time. These presentations then can be given in person, on a computer monitor, or on a TV screen.

Today's computer technology also allows digital multimedia presentations to be transformed into a video signal that can be captured by a VCR and annotated with a complete voice over. Videotape could well become the multimedia printer of choice because of the low cost and high availability of the VCR and videotape. Many VCRs allow the user to record in either NTSC or PAL, the two standard video formats worldwide.

The digital companion to this paper shows multimedia at work with excerpts from a structural geology school, a digital geologic field trip, and some digital impressions of the meeting where this paper was presented, the October 9-11, 1995 AAPG Mid-Continent Meeting.