Improving the methods of creating cartographic animations

Modeling and presentation of objects’ and phenomena dynamics in geographic space is one of the tasks in cartography. Currently, due to the active society digitalization and scientific and technological progress, many different tools, technologies and opportunities have appeared that can be used for creating maps that would reflect dynamics of processes occurred in the mapped territory. Multimedia cartography and, in particular, animation cartography is relatively new direction in cartography developed based on such new technologies. The animation cartography considers general characteristics, concepts, principles, technological schemes for creating, designing and presenting animated maps. Currently, most of the animated maps require using a variety of specialized software, like geographic information systems (GIS), vector and raster graphic editors, video effects editing software, etc. Consequently, it is important to study functionality of the popular desktop GIS applications in view of the implementation of a full cycle of animated maps preparation, without parallel or subsequent use of any additional software. Within the framework of our study, we have solved a number of tasks, including generalizing the theoretical and methodological foundations and identifying the main types of cartographic animations; analyzing existing methods for cartographic animating of objects; analyzing the functionality of the QGIS application ensuring creation of cartographic animations of objects. As a result of the study, methods and their algorithm implementations have been developed to create cartographic animations of objects in the QGIS environment; descriptions of the developed algorithms in UML (Unified Modeling Language) have been prepared; and the role of the developed methods in the knowledge system of cartography and geoinformatics has been analyzed and determined.