Tracing your route on a GIF of a map with the latest version of ProShow Gold
(Version 4.0.2549)
My wife and I recently got back from a trip to Turkey. I made a video of our trip. In the video, each leg of the journey was illustrated with an animated map that I traced the route on. ProShow Gold does not have an animated map tracing feature like Corel's VideoStudio X2.
However, the problem is easily remedied at no cost by creating an animated GIF using GIMP, the FREE image manipulation program.
1. Download and install a copy of GIMP.
http://www.gimp.org/downloads2. Download a GIF of a map that you want to trace your route on. Click on the image, right click, Save Picture As, navigate to the directory on your HD that you want to save the GIF to and click OK.
3. Fire up GIMP.
4. Click on File, Open, navigate to the directory where your map gif is and click OK.
5. Click on Layer, New Layer, and OK. We going to create a new layer, trace a tiny segment of our route on it.
6. Click on the Paintbrush tool. Move the paintbrush to your starting point on the map. Trace a tiny segment of your route say 1/16th of an inch and stop.
7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 over and over creating layers and tracing a tiny part of your route until you reach your ending point. Each layer is a frame in your animation.
8. Save your GIF under a different name from the original map. You may want to use the original map to show another segment. Click File, Save As
9. A window will appear entitled Save Image. Click on Save
10. Another window will appear entitled Export File. Click on the button Save As Animation, Click on Export.
11. Another window will appear entitled Save As GIF. You can leave the options as is or play with them. Click on OK to save your animated GIF.
12. Fire up ProShow Gold, navigate to the directory where your animated GIF is stored. Click on the GIF file and ProShow should immediately show the animation.
Enjoy!
--Alan