Visual Variables
With the growth of animated mapping came the development of guidelines for creating animated maps. Visual variables such as spacing, lightness and shape used for static maps apply. However, in 1991, David DiBiase and colleagues developed visual variables unique to animated maps: duration, rate of change and order. Duration is the unit of time a frame or scene is displayed, affecting the smoothness of the animation. The shorter a frame is displayed, the smoother the animation will appear (Slocum et al. 2005). Smoothness of animation is also a function of the rate of change (Slocum et al. 2005). Order refers to the time sequence in which animation is played out, usually presented in chronological sequence (Slocum et al. 2005). Alan MacEachren extended these visual variables in 1995 to include display date (time at which change is initiated), frequency (number of times identifiable forms are displayed) and synchronization (correspondence of 2 or more time series) (Slocum et al. 2005).
Read more about this topic: Animated Mapping
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