University of Illinois at Chicago: Urban Data Visualization Lab UIC Home

| Home | UDVL Home | Mission | Mission | Projects | Education | Research | Research | People | People

COMPLETED PROJECTS

Illustration: Bridge Reconstruction Time-Lapse Video From The Reconstruction of Roosevelt Road Bridge on The Douglas Branch of Chicago Transit Authority's Rapid Transit System.

Another application of this technique was used to create the time-lapse sequence of a bridge reconstruction on the CTA system. The entire 2-day process was formatted to fit in 30 seconds allowing it to be used for various purposes and presentations.

Video Editing

Project Started: July 2001
Project Completed: July 2001

There are many complex processes going on behind the scene which help shape many of the projects listed in other sections of this website. One of them is the now-optimized video editing techniques used by us. As video editing sometime requires phenomenal amount of storage space these techniques help organize and store data in more organized manner. Listed below is a short description of this entire mechanism. Video Editing Tools and Illustration:

Description from the paper: "A Multimedia Representation of Chicago Transit Authority's Rail Infrastructure System" (Shiffer, Chakraborty, Donahue, Garfield, Srinivasan, McNeil)

Process: The videos of navigational sequences are digitized (imported using Apple® iMovie® and then exported to QuickTime® .mov format). But this method is restricted to changing the overall speed and the frame size but more specialized software like Adobe® Premiere® is need to manipulate the frame speed (example: reducing the frame speed to half, take away half the amount of frames in the video at regular interval and reduces the file size by half, but also compromises the quality to a certain extent, but if the frame speed (and in turn the speed of the video) is doubled and the number of frames per second is halved, the change in quality is theoretically zero) and numbers. Adobe® Premiere® also exports the images to QuickTime® .mov format but many compression and audio manipulation (or removal is needed in case of accelerated video) techniques are need for the file to be in comfortable size and required proportions.

In case of still images (to be shown as still images as well) Adobe® Photoshop® was used for various changes in image resolution and image size and where there are digital nodal video (QuickTime® VR) .mov, multiple software like Spin® Panorama™, VR Works® and Adobe® Photoshop® etc. were used to get the images in correct sizes and proportion.

For further information, please contact Prof. Sue McNeil at mcneil@uic.edu