Creating Animated GIFs for the WWW with Maple

Contents:

1. Sample animations
2. Step-by-step instructions
3. Links to some other animations

Sample animations
 

The image shows a red point sliding along the graph of y = x exp( -x2/100 ).  Each time the point moves, the blue line is updated so that it remains tangent to the curve at that point.  Feel free to browse the Maple worksheet used to create this animation.

In this image, we see the graph of an eighth degree polynomial.  We use a right sum to approximate the area between the curve and the x axis from x = 0 to x = 6.  The animation starts with a single approximating rectangle, and each subsequent approximation involves twice as many rectangles as the previous. Feel free to browse the Maple worksheet used to create this animation.

This animation shows the graph of the cosine in juxtaposition with several Taylor polynomials. Feel free to browse the Maple worksheet used to create this animation.

 

Step-by-step instructions for creating animated gifs with Maple

To create an animation within Maple

• Execute the command  with(plots): to load the animate and display commands from the "plots" package (to get more help on these commands, type ?animate or ?display in Maple, or see the sample Maple worksheets provided with this presentation)
• With the display command, use the option insequence=true

Once the animation has been created with Maple

This creates an html page that resembles the Maple worksheet.  Each graph and each mathematical formula displayed within the Maple worksheet will appear as a separate gif image.  For example, if the chosen name for the HTML export file is "maple-export.html", then one might find the following folder and files created.
 
 

To view the worksheet as a web page, one would select the file "maple-export.html" from the web browser.  The files "maple-export1.html" and "maple-exportTOC.html" are auxiliary files used to display the worksheet in frames.

     All associate gif images are saved in the "images" folder.  In my sample worksheet, there were two displayed formulas, so two gif files were created as shown in the file listing below.
 
 

In practice, one must locate the gif file corresponding to the desired animation (it's usually the largest file).  In this particular example, the animation happens to be stored as "maple-export2.gif".

   The animated gif file can then be copied, renamed, or moved to the desired location.

Links to some other animations