Potential Business Uses of Computer Animation

Business groups using microfilm to update data in information search and retrieval systems might anticipate that computer animation is a natural extension of a medium with which they are already involved. That is true only in the sense that the output is still on film and that viewing the film can provide business information; the questions the animated film can answer are of a different nature and the personnel interested in that information are usually different.

It is assumed here that the potential business user has a general familiarity with computer animation to the extent that he has seen computer generated films. Contact with the periphery of the field can lead one to the conclusion that the thrust of animation efforts are in areas of a) education and research, b) engineering simulation displays, c) art, d) image quality technique development (halftones, shading, color), e) software development for powerful passive and interactive graphic systems. Few of the efforts seem connected with potential business uses of animation.

However complex, the variety of uses all reduce at some level to a flow plan that involves the basic elements shown on the left side of figure 1. The loop construction in a computer program allows small changes in variables to be made from frame to frame so that the display characteristics which are a function of those variables are exhibited in a motion whose smoothness depends upon how small one is willing to make the changes in the variables used to construct the display. The mechanics of implementing such a flow vary with the software language, the computer and the display device used. The implementation capability for generating animated footage can be viewed two ways. On the one hand it is simply a technique available to a producer to be used when appropriate. On the other hand, computer animation can be the guts of a biweekly production run to repeatedly extract weakly related cross sections of data from a large data base or bases. In the latter view, you have strong candidates for display in a form different from a fixed graph or bar chart.

Figure 1: Fundamental Operations in a Loop of an Animation Program

A general classification of computer animated business display possibilities would have to include

The variety of fixed graphs possible are well characterized and described elsewhere in these proceedings. Here we will show from the above classes some non-standard display uses made possible by computer animation.

Figure 2 contains several frames of a logo construction from a computer generated sequence of the CBS eye. One can contemplate imaginative, attention getting metamorphoses of product shapes which might otherwise be considered out of the question.

Figure 2: Sections from a five second computer generated construction of the Channel 2 CBS Logo (Courtesy of Computer Animation Inc, New York, N.Y.)

In information retrieval systems using microfiche or roll film, the connection between frames is some indexing method or scheme for ordering successive frames; with the movie, one looks for changes as a single parameter (not necessarily time) or many parameters change from frame to frame. The information sought is usually not specific values but rather trends and relationships. Frequently apparent randomness is observed in local movement but overall order is detected when the total environment of the motion is observed. Topographical displays allow visual comparison of company trends (say sales) with growth patterns or related business trends to determine where geographical deficiencies exist or can be anticipated in a company's efforts to catch part of a market. The view can be local or global as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Relative distribution of exports from the United States by the continents Asia, Oceania, Central America, South America, Africa, Europe and Northern America (Canada, Greenland etc) as of 1955. Length and width of arrows allowed to vary between specified limits to represent per cent of U.S. export in that direction. Display by orthographic projection.

Even the bar chart can be made dynamic. Figure 4 shows several frames from a sequence depicting changes in the GNP over a five year period. Several corporate profit and production quantities for the same time period are displayed. Bar heights are computed to change smoothly between quarterly reported values. The motion of the bars over time can be superimposed with individual company performance records to show how the company is leading or lagging industry wide averages or perhaps not matching them at all. The same information displayed on a geographical basis would be of even greater interest to a management team.

Figure 4: Animation of simple bar graph to allow visual correlation industry wide production values with the Gross National Product and other corporate profit data.

The simple bar chart animation of Figure 4 could be extended to any of several bar chart types, pie charts, statistical maps and charts drawn in projection. Figure 5 is an attempt to show how a frame from such a chart might be designed to allow comparison of disparate quantities.

Figure 5: Possible projection of disparate quantities varying as a function of time, geographical area,size of sales force etc. Rising and falling bars could be differentiated with hachure lines of different angles to aid visual correlation of the motion.

The cost of generating business animation films depends on a) whether the output represents a new program or merely an increment of effort beyond a currently made computer run, b) the amount, if any, of post computer production work required (say packaging in loops to send to salesmen across the country), c) the general utility of the program for repeated use.

In the end, pursuit of business animation has to be dictated on the basis of an evaluation of the worth of the information displayed versus its cost.