Automated Infographic Animation via Structure Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Designing animated infographics is labor-intensive, requiring hours or weeks to animate several seconds of content, as current tools lack efficient methods for controlling the motion of numerous visual elements.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that extracts visual elements from static infographics, determines their structure, and applies dynamic effects based on this structure to generate animated infographics.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If general-purpose video creation tools or visualization code libraries are used to author animated infographics, then creative flexibility is maintained, but the time and effort required increases dramatically (hours to weeks for several seconds of animation)
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically analyzes the static infographic structure, extracts visual elements and their relationships, and generates animation parameters without requiring manual control. The animation generation process serves itself by autonomously determining motion paths, timing, and sequencing based on the infographic's inherent structure, eliminating the need for designers to manually control each visual element's motion.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical manual control system with an automated computational system. Instead of designers manually adjusting each visual element's animation parameters through complex tool interfaces, a computer-implemented method automatically generates animation parameters by analyzing the infographic structure and applying motion rules, substituting manual mechanical control with automated algorithmic processing.
2Ease of operation
If manual animation authoring is used, then precise control over each visual element's motion is possible, but the process requires tremendous effort and time
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs self-service by automatically analyzing the infographic structure, identifying visual elements, determining their spatial relationships, and generating appropriate animation parameters without human intervention. The animation generation process autonomously handles tasks that would otherwise require manual authoring, making the process as easy as providing the static infographic as input.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary analysis of the infographic structure before animation generation, extracting visual elements and their relationships in advance. This preliminary action prepares the data structure and motion parameters beforehand, enabling rapid animation generation without requiring time-consuming manual setup during the actual animation authoring process.
3Productivity
If automated animation generation is implemented, then productivity increases significantly, but the system complexity for structure analysis and dynamic effect application increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the animation generation process into distinct modular steps: extracting visual elements from the infographic, determining the infographic structure and relationships, generating motion parameters based on element relationships, and applying dynamic effects. This segmentation allows each module to handle a specific task independently, managing system complexity through functional decomposition while maintaining high overall productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary structure analysis module that bridges the static infographic input and the animation output. This intermediary automatically determines the infographic's structure, identifies visual elements and their relationships, and translates this structural information into animation parameters, serving as a mediator that simplifies the overall system architecture while enabling automated generation.
Data Source
AI summary
Implementations of the subject matter described herein relate to generating animated infographics from static infographics. A computer-implemented method comprises: extracting visual elements of a static infographic; determining, based on the visual elements, a structure of the static infographic at least indicating a layout of the visual elements in the static infographic; and applying a dynamic effect to the visual elements based on the structure of the static infographic to generate an animated infographic.