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and linear temporal legends (Edsall et al ., 1997; Esdall and Sidney, 2005) and ontologies of
space-time (Hornsby and Egenhofer, 2000).
4.3 The nature of animated maps
In cartography, two basic animations types are known: temporal animation and non-
temporal animation (Dransch, 1997). Temporal animation deals with the depiction of dy-
namic events in chronological order and depicts actual passage of time in the world. In
a temporal animation, 'world time' (e.g. days, centuries) is typically proportionally scaled
to 'animation time' (e.g. typically seconds). For example, a population growth animation
based on decennial census data is mapped such that 10 years of world time represent a
constant time unit in the animation (temporal scale). Examples of temporal animations are
population growth, diffusion processes of diseases, commodities and the like, or wild fire
spreads and glacier movements.
Non-temporal animations use animation time to show attribute changes of a dynamic
phenomenon. The morphing technique is a good example of a non-temporal animation.
For instance, animation time is utilized to show a phenomenon's transformation from
an orthographic two-dimensional map depiction (e.g. 'god's eye' view) into a perspective
three-dimensional view. Other very popular non-temporal animation examples are fly-bys
or fly-throughs of three-dimensional terrain, where the viewer's perspective changes over
time (e.g. animation of camera motion).
Figure 4.1 demonstrates the flexibility and variety of animated maps that can be found
today. The photo-realistic fly-over map (upper left) takes viewers on a high-speed flight
Figure 4.1 Four types of animated maps (clockwise from top left): 'Fly-over' animated map
(Harrower and Sheesley, 2005), animation of sea surface temperatures (NASA/Goddard Space Flight
Center Scientific Visualization Studio, 2006), Ballotbank.com (Heyman, 2007) and UW-Madison
alcohol-related incidents (Liu and Qi, 2003)
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