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Animating a Map?

12 REPLIES 12
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Message 1 of 13
Bill.Schmid
619 Views, 12 Replies

Animating a Map?

We've been asked to create an animated map, of sorts.  Nothing on the map really would move, but sections would start one color, then highlight and change to a different color.  I'm assuming the ideal deliverable would be a HD quality movie file that they could slide the time marker back and forth to see different levels of progress.

 

Imagine you're trying to show a highway repaving project that will take a number of years to complete.  You start with the whole highway where nothing's been repaved.  Then, the first year's repaving highlights and then changes color to show that it's been repaved.  It remains the new color.  Then, the next year's repaving highlights and then changes to the repaved color.  This continues until the whole highway is shown as repaved.

 

I can't imagine Map3D not being able to do this, I just want to search out the best way before we get started.  Worst case, we save out a whole bunch of map images and assemble them in some other software.  But it seems like Map3D ought to be able to do it.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions?

12 REPLIES 12
Message 2 of 13
Murph_Map
in reply to: Bill.Schmid

Map3D alone it would be hard to do. Have you looked at InfraWorks with Civil3D and Max3d?

 

Murph
Supporting the troops daily.
Message 3 of 13
Bill.Schmid
in reply to: Murph_Map

I don't know if we'd need Infraworks or Civil.  It's really just a type of road map.  3DSMax sounds promising, though.

Message 4 of 13
maherich
in reply to: Bill.Schmid

I would recommend Nawisworks. It can display the whole process and moreover put a time and cost acording to project phase.

Message 5 of 13
Bill.Schmid
in reply to: maherich

That's a good feature, but this is more "CBS News election day coverage" graphics than engineering analysis.  Most of the number crunching has already been done.  They just want to see a visual representation.  I might take a look at it anyway.  Thanks.

Message 6 of 13
parkr4st
in reply to: Bill.Schmid

different scales by 0.01 ranges if your using shp or sdf data may do it? set a map view to each scale. not rally a movie but will produce the effect without anybody seeing a big difference in the map 

 

Dave

Message 7 of 13
maherich
in reply to: Bill.Schmid

one more idea.if you store your map data in some kind of database, SHP or SDF. you could set your display model to display or change color of the elements based on attributes. You can then after display the layer open the data table and dock it so that it doesn't cover the map window. now simply change the values and your map is going to change in the same time. If you capture this to the video, you are done! You will possibly need to turn off showing the vertices. after selection.

Message 8 of 13
Bill.Schmid
in reply to: maherich

I think for now we're going to try to use Navisworks.  The Timeliner seems to be made just for this type of display.  My only concern, other than the horrible media player that seems to be standard on Windows 7 now, is that someone's going to be looking at it and want to stop, backup and zoom in on an area.  This could probably be handled by having other supporting documentation.  Worst case, we do it all in the DWG with a layout page for each and every year.  The colors of the segments could be changed by viewport and the final product would be a multipage PDF that they zoom full out on and page through like a flip book by scrolling the mouse wheel.

 

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Message 9 of 13
dgorsman
in reply to: Bill.Schmid

If you don't want to go with a live-action Navisworks session, you can render the output to a movie (typically to frames, then use other software to composite the frames together into the movie).  Thats a little advanced though - best to get somebody experienced to help you with that.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 10 of 13
Bill.Schmid
in reply to: dgorsman

Just wanted to share a couple things we've learned with Navisworks.

 

First, when you import an AutoCAD drawing, it's a link.  If you go back and update the AutoCAD drawing, the updates go through to Navisworks.  I thought this was a handy feature, since once we got it into Navisworks and did a few things, we decided we needed to make some changes to the original drawing.

 

Second, when rendering movies in Navisworks, turn on anti-aliasing.  It makes the movie much smoother and clearer.

 

Third, you can post-process the movie to greatly reduce the file size.  I started with the Microsoft Video 1 format and had a file that was about 37.5 meg.  I copied the file over to my Mac and ran it through a program called Handbrake to convert it to an MP4.  That knocked it down to 1.25 meg - small enough to e-mail.

 

Sorry for cluttering up the Map discussion with Navisworks info, but hopefully it makes the thread more useful to someone else down the road.

 

Message 11 of 13
neilyj666
in reply to: Bill.Schmid

this is the sort of thing I need to do regularly and am very interested in how you went about this in Navisworks

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 12 of 13
Bill.Schmid
in reply to: neilyj666

neilyj,

 

I'll put together a summary of what we did and what we learned.  It just might take a few days before I can get to it.

 

Message 13 of 13
neilyj666
in reply to: Bill.Schmid

Thanks Bill, that would be much appreciated

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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AEC Collection 2024 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760

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