SYMAP time-lapse movie depicting growth of Lansing, MI 1850-1965, film video

SYMAP time-lapse movie depicting growth of Lansing, MI 1850-1965, film video from Allan Schmidt on YouTube.

Description

In March of 1967, just before becoming assistant director of the Laboratory, Allan Schmidt produced a motion picture generated from symap output. This may be the earliest attempt to use automated cartography to display dynamic spatial information. Waldo Tobler’s movie of the urban expansion of Detroit, often described as the first of its kind, was produced two years later.Schmidt’s movie portrays the urban expansion of Lansing, Michigan, where he was working at the Michigan State University, Urban Regional Research Institute. Every property transaction from 1850 to 1965 was coded by square-mile section of the Public Land Survey System. To produce the symap output, a thematic attribute was generated of the percent of land developed during each five year period. Each annual symap output formed a square about two feet by two feet. Hung in front of a movie camera, a set of frames were photographed. The sequence starts with a slow version of two minutes forty-five seconds. Then it repeats the sequence more rapidly in forty-five seconds, and finally in five seconds. the film represents a milestone in the development of thematic cartography. On the monitor is the last frame of a movie about land-use change from 1830–1965. Maps produced by symap 3 on a cdc 3600, Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan.

Allan H. Schmidt