1.2.2. History of Animated Maps

Animated maps are created by adding a temporal component to a map that displays change in some dimensions. Most commonly the change is shown over time (Wikipedia). An example would be the animation produced after the 2004 Tsunami showing how the waves spread across the Indian Ocean (see last example at the bottom of the page).

History / Development of Animated Maps

The concept of animated maps began in the 1930s, but did not become more developed by cartographers until the 1950s (Wikipedia).

In 1959, Norman Thrower published "Animated Cartography" (Thrower 1959). There, he discussed the use of animated maps by adding a new dimension that was difficult to express in static maps: time. These early maps were created by drawing "snap-shots" of static maps, putting a series of maps together to form a scene and creating animation through photography tricks (Wikipedia).

(data source: © Atlas of Switzerland 2004)

(data source: © Atlas of Switzerland 2004)

(data source: © Atlas of Switzerland 2004)

With the development of computers in the 1960s and 1970s, animation programs were developed allowing the growth of animation in mapping. Walter Tobler created one of the first animations, using a 3-D computer generated map to portray population growth over a specified time in Detroit (Wikipedia); (Tobler 1970). Computing such animations in these early development stages, meant to have huge computational costs: Computers were slow and all steps of the animations had to be programmed manually (compared to today, where it is very easy to create an animated GIF graphic, because there are programs which do everything for you).

Screen captures from a 2.5D surface evolution animation. (Schnabel 2008)

Further development in animated map was stalled until the 1990s due to a lack of animation in academics, financial restrictions on research, and lack of distribution means. In the 1990s, however, the invention of faster, more efficient computers, compact discs and the Internet solved such problems (Wikipedia).

Today, animations are very common in multimedia maps. An example would be the animation produced after the 2004 Tsunami showing how the waves spread across the Indian Ocean: