Color table animation

Even a small amount of animation can greatly enhance graphic communication—particularly when it is desired to show change, movement, or a complex idea or relationship. In raster scan display systems, however, the cost of providing animation has usually been prohibitively high due to the large bandwidths involved in changing a picture rapidly. This paper describes a simple method for providing a limited but very useful real-time interactive animation capability on many existing frame buffer systems. Color table animation relies on changing only the colors of objects and areas present within a single, static picture via the frame buffer's color table RAM. Several variations of this technique are discussed and examples are given of such a capability in use for illustration, educational animation, and television graphics.