Animated Presentation of Static Infographics with InfoMotion

Abstract

By displaying visual elements logically in temporal order, animated infographics can help readers better understand layers of information expressed in an infographic. While many techniques and tools target the quick generation of static infographics, few support animation designs. We propose InfoMotion that automatically generates animated presentations of static infographics. We first conduct a survey to explore the design space of animated infographics. Based on this survey, InfoMotion extracts graphical properties of an infographic to analyze the underlying information structures; then, animation effects are applied to the visual elements in the infographic in temporal order to present the infographic. The generated animations can be used in data videos or presentations. We demonstrate the utility of InfoMotion with two example applications, including mixed-initiative animation authoring and animation recommendation. To further understand the quality of the generated animations, we conduct a user study to gather subjective feedback on the animations generated by InfoMotion.