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Lab 9 Goal: In Lab 8 you exported scads of maps and associated legends from ArcGIS, and converted them to GIF files. You paid careful attention to the final size and graphic quality of the maps. The next step is to animate your maps, using Ulead GIF Animator, to create GIF animations for the web, Arc2Earth to create KMZ animations for Google Earth, and one other method of presenting your maps & data (which you figure out on your own).

Details:

First, a bit of background on map animation...

"In the motion picture lies a highly essential but much neglected field for pictorial statistics. Newsreels, war films and such features as "The March of Time," McCrary's "Ringside Seat" or "Kaltenborn Edits the News" occasionally incorporate maps, but usually they are either globes or maps clipped from newspapers and similar sources. But the screen offers the best imaginable opportunities for "dynamic" visual information. On the screen arrows can really move as opposing armies advance or retreat, statistical columns can grow or shrink, frontiers can be violated and empires can literally "crumble." The effect created by such "living" maps and graphs can be further heightened by an effective accompaniment of words or music. One could both see and hear a "frontier" "break down," the tramping "men" in the statistical column "join the army," "the whistling ships" slide down the ways and the like. Why not include such a map feature, dynamically illustrating current war events, in the newsreels? Why not visualize the growth of line-lease aid, the progress of the war-bonds campaign, in pictorial statistics that move? Why not portray Germany's exploitation of the occupied countries by maps on which the confiscated goods actually march into the Reich? Or depict the effect of air raids, swarms of planes (in symbols) dropping bombs across a map of strategic and key industrial points? Why not dramatize the unrest in Nazi-occupied Europe by flashing on a map those places where hostages have been executed, troop trains have been derailed, underground papers have been secretly edited and printed. These few suggestions indicate how great can be the improvement in the techniques and therefore the effectiveness of visual means for conveying information about the war. (Heinz Soffner. "War on the Visual Front." The American Scholar 11:4, 1942. pp. 465-476. Quote from page 476-77)

This multimedia extravaganza envisioned by Soffner in 1942 was suggested by the need for war-time propaganda. What is interesting is that there is a clear sense that adding a dynamic component to maps will "enliven" them and make them more effective.

Animation can be defined as "...a dynamic visual statement that evolves through movement or change in the display. The most important aspect of animation is that it depicts something that would not be evident if the frames were viewed individually. In a sense, what happens between each frame is more important than what exists on each frame."

Animation works because the eye-brain mechanism retains, for a fleeting instant, images of objects it has seen after the objects have been removed. If the eye is shown a series of static views of objects at a rapid rate (30 per second) with the objects changing positions only slightly from frame to frame, the illusion of life like motion - animation - is created in the mind.

A Short History of Animation

• suggested in 1824 by Peter Roget: "The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects" presented to the British Royal Society.

• 1831: Dr. Joseph Antoine Plateau and Dr. Simon Ritter constructed a machine called a phenakistoscope which produced an illusion of movement by allowing a viewer to gaze at a rotating disk containing small windows behind which was another disk containing a sequence of images. When the disks were rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows with the images created an animated effect.

• 1887: Thomas Edison started research work into motion pictures.

• 1896: Thomas Armat designed the vitascope which projected the films of Thomas Edison; this machine had a major influence on all subsequent projectors.

• 1906: J. Stuart Blackton made the first animated film called 'Humorous phases of funny faces'.

• 1909: Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called 'Gertie the Trained Dinosaur' consisting of 10,000 drawings.

• 1913: Pat Sullivan created an American cartoon series called 'Felix the Cat'

• 1926; Lotte Reiniger produced the first feature-length animated film called 'Prince Achmed'.

• 1928: Walt Disney created the first cartoon with synchronized sound called 'Mickey Mouse'.

• 1957: John Whitney used 17 Bodine motors, 8 Selsyns, 9 differential gear units and 5 ball integrators to create analogue computer graphics.

• 1964: Ken Knowlton, working at Bell Laboratories, started developing computer techniques for producing animated movies.

• Computer animation software for desktop computers developed in the 1970s, and the WWW has made animated graphics available to a broad audience of users. The creation of animations for the WWW is easy, in large part due to the GIF graphic file format.

1. GIF Animations: Animation for the People or Scourge of the Internet?

When a GIF file with layers is viewed on the WWW it flips through the layers one by one: thus you can use GIF files to easily create animated graphics for the WWW. You are certainly aware of all those annoying animated advertising banners, mail-box icons with the mail-box door opening and closing, spinning globes, etc. All of these amazing and dazzling and ultimately annoying animated graphics are created using GIF files.

Stare at the animations (above) for a moment, then ponder the annoyance factor when experimenting with GIF animation for your project.

The advantage of GIF animation is that no special browser plug-ins are needed to view the animations (even the oldest computers with out of date browsers can show them quickly) and they are easy to create with free or low-cost software. Using software (like GIF Animator) you can set the order of the files, set transitions, effects, delays, etc. You can also copy existing animated GIF files off the WWW, and, in many cases open them in GIF Animator and modify them (eg., make the earth spin the wrong way).

Lots of horrifying GIF animations here.

Each of you will create four GIF animations:

• Graduated Color (Choropleth) map of Population change in your state(s), 1900-2007

• Graduated color (Choropleth) map of Population change gains and losses (a 2 class map). You will have to go back to ArcGIS and create a new classification (2 classes, split at 0), export, and animate the files.

• Graduated Symbol map of Total Population in your state(s), 1900-2007

• Dot Density map of Total Population in your state(s), 1900-2007

You will find a copy of Ulead's GIF Animator installed on your computer (there should be a shortcut on the desktop, or look on the C drive, program files, under GIF Animator or Ulead). Use the online help files to learn how to import your GIF files and animate them. Copies of the manual will also be available in the Lab (near the computer in front). Please document basic step by step instructions for using GIF Animator in your lab log! Note interesting effects or capabilities you discover.

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Hint: you can use GIF Animator to create slide shows of pictures - which is a more compact way to show images of your state or states than having a page full of photos. You may think of other creative ways to use animated GIF files in your project.

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2. Arc2Earth: Generating Animated KMZ Maps for Google Earth

The Arc2Earth software is ONLY on the instructor computer in the front of the room: Please watch your time on the instructor's computer, as everyone needs to use it to complete the KMZ exports.

Arc2Earth is a plug-in for ArcMap that allows you to export map layers as KML or KMZ files (KMZ is a compressed KML file; both work the same). KMZ files can include temporal data, and if done right, will produce animations. We will create two KMZ animations: one your classified choropleth map, and the other the gains/losses map (noted above).

Each of you will create two KMZ animations for Google Earth:

• Graduated Color (Choropleth) map of Population change in your state(s), 1900-2007

• Graduated color (Choropleth) map of Population change gains and losses (a 2 class map). You will have to go back to ArcGIS and create a new classification (2 classes, split at 0), export, and animate the files.

  
  

• Under the FIle menu select Document Properties then Data Source Options. Change the setting to Store relative path names to data sources and hit OK then OK again.

• Save As... and give the file a new name, like Ohio_Google.

• Delete all but your two choropleth maps (each should have 12 layers). Save.

• Using Save As..., create one .mxd file for each of your two choropleth maps (named something like: Ohio_Google.mxd & Ohio_Google_gainloss.mxd)

• Organize the layers from oldest to newest, so 1900-1910 is at the top of the list. Save

• Turn all the layers on.

• Change your county borders to white, and 3 points in size. It looks bad in ArcGIS but good in Google Earth (always design for the final medium). Go to each layer, select the symbols (shift-click to select all), then right-click on the selected symbols. Select the option in the menu to change the symbols for all layers, and change the line to 3 pt white. Save and Quit ArcMap.

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Weird File Mayhem in ArcGIS: You may have noticed that ArcGIS is complicated when it comes to the files that comprise any ArcGIS project. There is your project file, .mxd, but also a series of files for single shape file you use in your project. These files typically are: .dbf, .prj, .sbn, .sbx, .shp, .shp.xml, and .shx. If any of these files are not present, the layer in your project may not work properly or display. Look up each of these file types (ArcMap help) and indicate, in your lab blog, what they are.

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2b) You have to move your files to the Instructor computer in the front of the room to use Arc2Earth. You can either:

• Copy the entire ArcGIS folder to a flash drive or writable CD then sneaker-net the files (walk them up to the instructor computer).

• ...or...

• Zip the files using the WinZip program: open it, select the evaluation version, then create a new archive, ad all the files in your ArcGIS folder, and zip them. Once zipped you can email the zipped files to yourself. Use your OWU web mail to download the files onto the instructor computer.

• In the Geog 353 folder on the Instructor Computer, create a folder with your last name and copy your files into the folder. Open your .mxd file with your choropleth maps. If any of the layers are not showing up let your instructor know.

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Hint: Some illustrations from a tutorial related to this part of the project are here at the Making Maps book blog.

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2c) The Arc2Earth menu should be visible in ArcMap. If not, from the View menu select Arc2Earth V2. Open one of your .mxd files.

2d) From the Export menu of Arc2Earth select Export All Layers (vector)....

• Make sure all the layers in the list are checked.

• Under the General tab add an Export Location. Navigate to your personal folder on the computer, create a folder (KMZ), and then type in a file name for your exported file.

• Under the Options tab un-check the Create Legend option.

  
  

• Click once on the name of the first of your map layers (change 1900-1910) in the window on the left. In the Time Data tab select the Use the value for entire layer option.

• Start Date for the 1900-1910 map should be 1/1/1900 at 12:00:00PM and End Date should be 12/31/1909 at 12:00:00PM.

• Select the next map layer (1910-1920) and set the time data the same, adjusting the dates (eg., 1910 and 1919 rather than 1900 and 1909), and so on: set the time for all the layers (adjusting the years).

2f) Hit Export and you should see a window indicating progress of the export. It should say Export completed successfully if all went well.

2g) Close out of Arc2Earth and minimize ArcMap.

2h) Open Google Earth.

• Under the File menu select Open and navigate to and open your exported KMZ file. You should zoom to your state and see your first map, as well as a time line near the top of the window. Click on the play button (triangle to the left of the time line) to play the animation. Adjust the settings, such as animation speed, by clicking on the clock icon to the left of the time line.

2i) When all is working, export your second choropleth map (gains/losses) in the same way. Check that the animation is ok. Turn off the first KMZ file before you open the second in Google Earth. Then email your two KMZ files to yourself. Once back on your own computer, make a space on your HTML animation page to download the KMZ files, or create a new HTML page for the KMZ files. To make the files downloadable, put them in your HTML folder, create a link to the files on one of your web pages, and upload the KMZ files to the server. When someone clicks on the link, the KMZ should download. Check that this works from a different computer once you upload all the changes to your web pages. You should explain what the KMZ files are and what to do with them on your web pages.

3. Something Else

Web mapping and virtual globes (like Google Earth) expand in capabilities almost on a daily basis. You have a bunch of maps (choropleth, graduated symbol, dot) and have animated them as GIF files and using Arc2Earth software.

Come up with one more significant alternative way to display some or all of your data. I am leaving this up to you: the only requirement is that whatever you do should enhance viewers understanding of your data. The more creative or interesting the better.

Each of you will create one more significant and different way of presenting your maps.

• using different software

• using different functions of the software you used in this lab

• or...whatever you can figure out.

  
  

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Hint: Variable speed maps: Apply to your Choropleth, Graduated Symbol, and Dot Density maps. One problem with animated GIFS is that the user has no control over the speed of the animation. What is too slow for one viewer may be too fast for another. It is easy to solve this problem by creating several animated GIFS of the same maps. You may create one animated series that flips through the maps quickly, another which flips through the maps at a moderate speed, and yet another that is very slow. You then provide the viewer of your WWW pages the option to view the slow, medium, or fast animation.

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Hint: Use something other than Ulead's Gif Animator software to make animated GIFs. There are many free-ware and share-ware software packages that create animated GIF files. Please don't download anything on the GIS lab computers before checking with your instructor. Whatever you use should provide different functionality than the GIF Animator software. Document how to use the software and why it works well as an alternative or supplement to GIF Animator.

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Hint: There are several free plug-ins that export ArcGIS files to KML or KMZ. Locate and use one of these alternatives to Arc2Earth. Again, don't download anything on a lab computer or install in ArcGIS without checking with me. Document how to use the software and why it works well as an alternative or supplement to Arc2Earth.

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Hint: Some of you fancy folks using CSS might be able to figure out different, fancy ways to display your maps.

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You will finish this lab with:

• four animated GIF maps (using GIF Animator, for viewing on the Web)

• two animated KMZ files (using Arc2Earth, for viewing in Google Earth)

• one additional significant display method

E-mail: jbkrygier@owu.edu

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