Why we love it
This eye-catching animation presents COVID-19 data, in a way you’ve never seen before. Showcasing the spread of coronavirus across the UK, the animation spans 11 months of data and presents an easy-to-consume visual that offers a spatial narrative. Highlighting trends in various parts of the UK, this animation draws attention to local lockdowns, fluctuating case counts and introduction of national restrictions. It’s certainly easier to understand than a never-ending table of statistics!
Why it works
The map uses a technique called Dot Density, which allocates 1 dot on the map to represent 1 positive COVID case. As the numbers begin to increase, the cluster of dots quickly tells a story of the hot and cold spots across the country. The simple customised basemap in addition to the vibrant orange dots makes for a loud and contrasting cartography style, that makes it easy to identify spatial patterns. In addition to the map, there are dynamic text fields showing the date and cumulative case count, which adds to the depth of the animation.
Requirements
Data and software
The video was created using ArcGIS 2.6’s animation tools. This process demanded a lot of resource, exporting 1,000 frames each with thousands of small dots to draw, so a virtual machine was used to help with the heavy lifting. The data was extracted from the governments COVID API, which now sits in the Living Atlas as a spatial layer.
Analysis
The dot density technique was used to create the first and last keyframe on the animation timeline. ArcGIS Pro then calculates the journey between the start (January) and end date (November), exporting a fluid animation.
Time
Each version took several hours to export, due to the large number of frames to export. Using a VM certainly is recommended, as it allows you to work on other things whilst Pro is chugging away in the background.
Tips and tricks
Keep it simple!
The complexity of exporting 1,000 frames on an animation all moving at lightning pace means the user will struggle to keep up if you have too much on your map. Strip back to the essentials for the map, removing labels, roads and complicated symbology.
Virtual Machine
Using a virtual machine allowed for the map to be exported at a faster speed and therefore the option of adding more detail, without having to wait 20 minutes after each click. The time saved was worth the small expense of VM.
Keyframes
Get familiar with the keyframe properties, as they harness a lot of power to customise your map but isn’t necessarily obvious to find. Using the range setting on one of the data layers created a ‘cumulative cases’ value, which could be updated throughout the keyframes to match the date.
Map Author
Sam Bark
Sam Bark is a Cartographer on the Product Communications team at Esri UK. Aside his passion for map design, Sam’s other interests extend to fair-weather cycling, London’s diverse food scene and photography.