Paper From History to Hydrodynamics: Creating Animations of Political Data and Ocean Currents with ArcView GIS

Author: Gary M. Ostroff
Organization: HydroQual, Inc.

1 Lethbridge Plaza

Mahwah, NJ 07430
USA

Phone: 201.529.5151
Fax: 201.529.5728
gostroff@hydroqual.com

This paper describes an approach to creating animations of tabular data files that provide valuable guidelines for doing the same with data generated by sophisticated hydrodynamic model simulations. Creating an animated map of U.S. voter history in presidential elections presents problems of data presentation that are similar to those encountered with animations of multivariable data (salinity, current velocity, direction) produced by computer simulations. The approach developed with ArcView Tracking Analyst can be used for any data set that can be shown as a point varying through time for one location.