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

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]