It is 4,717.52 feet from the front door of Barsema Hall to the front door of DuSable Hall – if you take sidewalks and roads. It’s a mere 3,505.24 feet if you fly. Or so says NIU’s new interactive Web map.

The new campus Web map, launched this week, is an interactive tool allowing users to create maps or view anything from campus parking to NIU landmarks.

The map, located at www.webmap.niu.edu, was put together by the geography department’s Geospatial Laboratory.

The idea for an interactive map initially came up in January 2003, said Phil Young, director of the advancement for the Geospatial Laboratory.

Young and other researchers worked 11 months to map the campus and its surrounding area.

Now, with the click of a mouse, map users can identify buildings, bus stops, bus routes, construction zones, parking lots, emergency boxes or even bike racks. There also is an option to zoom in and out of areas.

“It acts as a public service,” Young said.

One service students and faculty may get the most use out of is the distance tool.

By clicking on any part of the map, students can chart a walking path to any other part of the map. An icon appears with the distance between the two points in feet and miles and also will give estimated walking time. For example, if you walk straight down Lucinda Avenue, it takes nine minutes to walk from the front door of Lincoln Hall to the Holmes Student Center, but if you detour around the Chick Evans Field House, it will take 13 minutes.

Those distances are measured assuming that a person is walking at an average speed of 3.2 mph, Young said.

NIU’s landscape was mapped out by aircrafts using Ortho Photography, Young said. The images captured were adjusted to take into account hills or steps that students may face on their way to and from class.

“It should all be accurate within one or two feet,” Young said.

Funding for the map came from a $900,000 educational equipment grant from the Intergraph Corporation.

The Intergraph Corporation is one of the world leaders in Geographic Information Services, Young said. The inclusion of GIS technology allows NIU to be one of the first universities nationwide whose campus map is not static.

The improvement already has garnered positive feedback. There have been quite a few people not only complimenting the map, but also giving feedback on what they would like to see added, Young said.

In the future, NIU plans to expand the map. Later in the spring, the map will be connected to WebConnect and act similar to MapQuest, said Don Larson, executive director of Enrollment Services. When registering for classes, students will be able to access the map and track distances between classes to see if they will have enough time. The map also will offer students or faculty the optimal route between buildings.

NIU’s interactive map can be found at: www.webmap.niu.edu