A map for a union changing over time

Hi,

I hope this is the right forum. I love animaps, and I would like to use it to produce a nice animation for coming Wikimania (The annual Wikipedia/Wikimedia conference) - where I would like to show an animation how the Wikimedia chapters were created in the past years. This is very comparable with a Union, which is joined by different countries at different time points.

I would like:
* At certain time points a pin to appear with a little text balloon with a few words in it, indicating the joining or another event. The balloon and pin should disappear after 2 seconds.
* At that same time point, a country to change color - this color should remain in place for the further duration of the animation.

It doesn't sound very complicated, but I have been unable to actually make it. Could someone help me, ideally with a step-by-step explanation?

Thanks a lot,
Lodewijk

Hi Lodewijk,

Yes, you've come to the right forum.

What you've described sounds easy but is made difficult because Animaps does not currently support the colour of a shape (such as a country) changing over time. The only way to simulate this is to have two shapes, one of which disappears at the same time as the second appears.

The map below shows this - Spain is covered by two shapes, one of which is animated from 0 to 1 month, and the second from 1 to 11 months. A text popup is set to appear at 1 month as well, for two seconds.
http://www.animaps.com/pb/180001/6210/Country_Colour_Change

Steps to create this map -

1. Create a map of duration 1 year
2. Create a shape around Spain
3. Click Animate me for the shape
4. Open the timeline for the shape, and click '0 years'
5. Click 'stop here'
6. Stop for 1 month
7. Move the time slider to 1 month
8. Create a second shape around Spain
9. Click Animate me for the shape
10. Open the timeline for the shape, and click '0 years'
11. Click 'stop here'
12. Set 'After' to 1 month, and 'stop here for' to 11 months
13. Select the text creation button and click on the map near Spain
14. Enter the text for Spain
15. Close the text info window
16. Drag the text icon into Spain

Several enhancements in our pipeline would make creating a map like this easier -
1. Being able to 'clone' a shape would mean only drawing each country once
2. A 'stay visible until the end' link would make keeping the second shape visible until the end much easier. Both of these features are currently available for animated markers, but not shapes.

Send an email to support@animaps.com with your time constraints and we may be able to get these features out in time.

Regards

Support

Thanks for the help. I got it working more or less, once I found out that the "timeline" button is actually on the left side and not in the balloon where I expected it.

Thanks, Lodewijk