DataArt

Most of these projects are realized as Animated GIFs. I have found Animated .GIFs to be an effective way to display time-varying event data: e.g., monthly maps combined to show evolving patterns in the data. The recent ones were built into animated .GIFs using 'GIF Construction Set Pro' software which doesn't seem to choke on a large quantity of large input files. I still haven't figured out how to gracefully convert the animated .GIFs to a YouTube-friendly format...

Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome open these .GIFs and display them with animation - once they are fully (down)loaded. If your file associations open the .GIFs in another program, e.g., image editing software, they may not display as animated, depending on the capabilities of the software. If you are confounded by this, one option is to save the animation and then open the file using File/Open in your web browser software, e.g., Firefox or Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.

Six Years in Willard Brook State Forest - 2018 - Animated GIF

When I tried to assemble the entire 2012 - 2017 data / image collection, the 712 MB (!) of .GIF images, my GIF Animation software crashed. So I split up the dataset into three 2-year chunks. I still encountered crashing with the largest of the three chunks. 'GIF Construction Set Professional' Tech Support offered helpful suggestions so I was able to get all three of the two-year chunks assembled and compressed. The resulting .GIF animations are HUGE. Note that the animation does not start until the file is totally downloaded into the Web browser, so if you have a slow Internet connection, you may not want to bother with this...

Hikes, Runs, and Skis in WBSF - 2012 - 2013 (32.2 MB)
Hikes, Runs, and Skis in WBSF - 2014 - 2015 (48.4 MB)
Hikes, Runs, and Skis in WBSF - 2016 - 2017 (45.1 MB)

Search WBSF Events

Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord Unit - 2015 - 2017 - Animated GIF

My friend John Linn is a frequent visitor to Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in search of birds and scenery. He used GIMP to stitch together many of his photos taken from a single vantage point. (Large file: 62 MB)

Great Meadows View

Anomalous(?) Radar Feature July 8, 2017 - Animated GIF

An apparent 'anomalous' storm feature leading an approaching cold front. Captured on Radar images.

Apparently Anomalous Radar Event - July 8, 2017

Bob M. Travel Locations 2010 - Animated GIF

Animated maps showing the locations visited by my friend Bob in the course of his travels, mostly for work, during 2010.

The base map was created by combining north and south polar orthographic projections. The images were drawn using Visual Basic.

Version 1 - 'Flat' Map (1000 X 800 Pixels, 1.8 MB)
Version 2 - 'Flat' Map - travel links crossing the Equator wrap and Southern Hemisphere travel links are dashed. (1000 X 800 Pixels, 428 KB)
Version 3 - Travels during the year depicted as a fence diagram. (1000 X 800 Pixels, 2.9 MB)

Grateful Dead Concerts Attended 1970 - 1995 - Animated GIF

Animated maps showing the locations and accumulated frequency of 119 Grateful Dead concerts I attended - from my first in 1970 - to 1995.

The base map was obtained from http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/images/usa-avhrr.gif.

The images were drawn using Visual Basic.

Large Animation - Fast - One Third Second per Month (1175 X 748 Pixels, 388 KB)
Large Animation, Slow Version - 1 Second per Month (1175 X 748 Pixels, 388 KB)
Smaller Fast Animation - Images a bit degraded, and larger file size, but smaller screen size (881 X 561 Pixels, 5.1 MB)

Grateful Dead Concerts in the Lower 48 US States - Animated GIF

Animated maps showing the locations of Grateful Dead concerts from 1972 to 1995. The concert list was prepared by adapting the annual GD concert listings from http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/gdead/. These listings were not checked against DeadBase or other sources for accuracy or completeness, but their use is gratefully acknowledged. If you notice any errors or omissions, feel free to let me know by email and I will try to fix them if/when I rework the project.

The base map was obtained from http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/images/usa-avhrr.gif.

City coordinates and location plotting coordinates were determined using Maptitude GIS software. The images were drawn using Visual Basic.

Large Animation (1175 X 748 Pixels, 1.75 MB)
Large Animation, Slow Version - 1.5 sec per image (1175 X 748 Pixels, 1.75 MB)
Smaller Animation (905 X 576 Pixels, 0.8 MB)

Months in which there were no shows in the lower, continental US are indicated by "No Shows" in the cities list on each image. No effort was made to indicate that there WERE shows outside the scope of the map (e.g., Europe, Egypt tours, Canada shows, etc.).

Individual images in "large" or "small" format can be viewed using the following display selectors. Use the "back" button on your Web browser to return.

Database of US Shows in the Lower 48 States from 1972 to 1995, as used for plotting:
As spreadsheet (.xls)
As tab-delimited text file (.txt)
As comma separated values file (.csv)

Poster Development Animations - Animated GIFs

These posters can be viewed on the Data Posters page.

Daily Music

32 Years of Daily Music playing time data displayed as a radial time graph.
Graph Fills with Data - loops (239 kb).

Development/Evolution of the Daily Music Poster
MusicGraph Evolution - illustrates the programming steps in the development of the poster.
Graph Evolves - loops (13 MB).

Radial Time/Distance Graph of Grateful Dead Concerts Attended

Development/Evolution of the Radial Time/Distance Graph
Radial GD Plot Evolution - illustrates the programming steps in the development of the poster.
Graph Evolves - loops (1.5 MB).

Raster-Based Data Transformation Animations

Raster graphics consist essentially of a matrix or grid of image points, or pixels. The color/brightness value of each point is specified. An image of a black circle on a white background would consist of a grid of values specifying white, except for values specifying black at points where parts of the circle are present. Raster graphics are often contrasted with "vector graphics". The same black circle on a white background, in a vector graphic representation, would consist of a specification, a formula for generating the graphic, such as: "an image of 400 rows by 600 columns, white everywhere, except black where points defined by a circle of diameter 150 pixels centered at point (300,200) with a circle line width of 10 pixels." Raster graphics are created by scanners, digital cameras, and graphics programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Vector graphics are created by programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Freehand or AutoCad.

The animated presentations below were produced by taking a raster image and applying numerical transformations to that image to produce the next image in the series, to which the transformation is applied to create its successor, and so forth. Idrisi raster-based GIS software was used to produce the initial image and its transformed daughter images, which were then combined to form the animations.

Depending on the software used to display the .mpg files, they may display in full-screen mode. They tend to look better at their native resolution. For this purpose, it may be preferable to save the file to disk and then display it using software that does not default to full-screen mode.

File sizes are listed in parentheses. Note that if you are connected to the Internet using a modem, these files may take a while to download.

Link	Description
Combinlg.gif	Ground Water Flow / Contaminant Plume Simulation (197 KB)
IdrAnima.mpg	Moving Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the U.S. (3,222 KB)
Topogray.mpg	Color-Coded Drape Image Migrates Across a Gray U.S. (1,626 KB)
Toposee3.mpg	Color-Coded Drape Image Migrates Across the U.S. with Persistence (1,510 KB)
Toposee2.mpg	Color-Coded Drape Image Migrates Across the U.S. without Persistence (1,906 KB)
Toposeep.mpg	Color-Coded Drape Image Migrates Across the U.S. without Persistence and without Titles (1,263 KB)
Trymorf4.mpg	Simple Morphing (289 KB)

Animated Data Maps - Animated GIFs

In these projects, compiled information from a database is displayed on a (raster) graphic image. In these works, a month's-worth of data is depicted to form one image, the subsequent month's data is portrayed on another image, and so forth, and then the images are combined in sequence to form an animation. Foxpro was used for data manipulation. Visual Basic was used to create the individual images for lghikes.gif and smhikes.gif. Foxpro was used to create the individual images for combined Hikes, Boogies, Music Events animations. Jasc Animation Shop was used to assemble the individual .gif images into animated gifs. A more detailed account of the method used to create these animations is available here.

File sizes are listed in parentheses. Note that, particularly if you are connected to the Internet using a modem, these files may take a while to download.

At the bottom of this page is an option to display an image and the corresponding data for any month in the data period.

Thumbnail	Link	Description
2009 - Outdoor Adventures, Dancing Events, and Music Events, 1979 - 2008
	Digital Elevation Model as Basemap. Mercator Projection.
	LLDEM840X601.gif	New - October 2012 - Full Size - (0.6 MB)
	LL_DEM_qtrS.gif	Fast - One quarter second per frame (5,377 KB)
	LL_DEM_halfS.gif	Medium - One half second per frame (5,377 KB)
	LL_DEM_1S.gif	Slow - One second per frame (5,377 KB)
	LL_DEM_SMALL.gif	Small File, Lowest Quality - One quarter second per frame (1,492 KB)
	True Color Satellite Image as Basemap. Mercator Projection.
	LLTrueC800X731.gif	New - October 2012 - Full Size - (3.4 MB)
	LL_TruClr_qtrS.gif	Fast - One quarter second per frame (5,490 KB)
	LL_TruClr_halfS.gif	Medium - One half second per frame (5,490 KB)
	LL_TruClr__1S.gif	Slow - One second per frame (5,490 KB)
	LL_TruClr_SMALL.gif	Small File, Lowest Quality - One quarter second per frame (1,631 KB)
	True Color Satellite Image as Basemap. Albers Projection.
	AlbersTrueC610X750.gif	New - October 2012 - Full Size - (2.1 MB)
	Albers_TruClr_qtrS.gif	Fast - One quarter second per frame (7,774 KB)
	Albers_TruClr_halfS.gif	Medium - One half second per frame (7,774 KB)
	Albers_TruClr__1S.gif	Slow - One second per frame (7,774 KB)
	Albers_TruClr_SMALL.gif	Small File, Lowest Quality - One quarter second per frame (2,142 KB)

Thumbnail	Link	Description
2002 - Outdoor Adventure Locations 1980 - 2002
	smhikes.gif	2002 - Hiking locations 1980 - 2002 without list (2,102 KB)
	lghikes.gif	2002 - Hiking locations 1980 - 2002 with list, larger version (6,167 KB)

If display of animated .gif files does not work for you, the hikes animations are available in different file formats at: http://www.uturniton.com/hikes/animations/index.cfm

Display Information for a Particular Month

Maps are available for the period from September, 1979 through September, 2008. Data is available through December 2010.

Mercator Digital Elevation Model
Mercator True Color
Albers True Color