How did I do this?

This is very much like what I have described elsewhere on this server for the production of MPEGs from Arc/Info coverages.

Essentially you just do a series of SCREENSAVEs, and find some way to string the images together. The nitty-gritty Arc/Info stuff is:

1. After starting Arcplot (I'm on a sun with AI 7.0.1) I set to display to a standard size:

   display 9999 size canvase 150 200
   

   That way I have standard-sized images.
2. I run the following aml:

   &args bdate bframe numframe
   /* animation.aml Written by Erich Schroeder, Illinois State Museum
   /* sometime in late 1995, greatly modified for different purposes..
   /*
   /* The goal of this aml is just to do a series of screensaves to create
   /* some frames to be animated in some way.  The arguments are:
   /* bdate = begining date for this part of the animation.
   /* bframe = beginning frame number for this part of the animation
   /*          (note: not really used much in this incarnation of the aml)
   /* numframe = the number of iterations (frames) to be produced in this run.
   /*
   /* I run this in grouping of about 20 or so.  The land records data set is
   /* large (over 500,000 90-byte records) so it ties up the machine pretty well.
   /*
   /* First, set up two relations called "mm" and "max" to use.
   /* "mm" is the basic relation to tie the coverage and the info file together.
   /* "max" helps in identifying sections that are completely in private
   /* ownership by the year in question.
   relate add
   mm
   statepur
   info
   trs
   trs
   ordered
   auto
   max
   maxyear
   info
   trs
   trs
   ordered
   auto
   ~
   /*
   /* Set up an ending point...
   /*
   &s eframe = %bframe% + %numframe%
   /*
   /* standard arcplot stuff
   /*
   shadeset color
   mape /illinois/admin/county-nl
   mapposition cen cen
   /*
   /* Make a map for one year...save it...and loop around.
   /*
   &do i = %bframe% &to %eframe% &by 1
   clear
   arcs /illinois/admin/state-nl
   move 0.05 0.15
   textsize .1
   text %bdate%
   clearselect
   reselect state2 poly max//year lt %bdate%
   polygonshades state2 2
   nselect state2 poly
   reselect state2 poly mm//year eq %bdate%
   polygonshades state2 7
   &type done with %bdate%, frame %i%
   screensave pur%bdate%.ras
   &s bdate = %bdate% + 1
   &end
   &type final values==== bdate, %bdate%, frame %i%
   
   &return
   

3. Keep on running this until it is done. If you want to make an MPEG, read up on Mpeg_encode.
4. Translate the sunraster screensave files to gifs. I used XV.
5. The Server-Push is done with a perl script called animate.cgi that I downloaded from https://pobox.com/pobox/ (strange, I'm not able to get to them now). The script is very well commented.

Thanks for visiting,

Erich Schroeder
Illinois State Museum
GIS Laboratory
1011 East Ash Street
Springfield, IL 62703