GIF animation

[BillC]

I would welcome some feedback on an animated GIF I've knocked together. It's an illustration of three-phase power flow, probably destined for a Wikipedia article when it's ready. It's my first attempt at producing anything like this, and any pointers on smoothness, or recommended software would be appreciated.

The picture is to be found here:
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/7264/360deganimation2sm.gif

It consists of 36 PNG images (each representing a 10 degree step in phase) exported from Inkscape, and imported into GIF Animator by Longtion Software. At present, I'm only using the try-out package, which explains the logo watermark at the top (disappears in the purchased version).

Some points I can see:

• The blue phase current dips at one point in the animation; I'll fix this later.
• The yellow is not easy to see, but it is the 'correct' colour for a three-phase supply. Either I'll change it to, say, green, or will place the whole thing on a light grey background, or something.

 

[Ducky]

The illustration is cool, but when do you install it in the Dolorean?

 

[69dodge]

Representing the magnitude of a current by the length of an arrow is conventional, but it's still somewhat abstract. Maybe the picture would more directly convey the idea of three-phase current if you represented current by colored dots ("electrons") that move with a velocity proportional to the current. Draw the wires as hollow, perhaps, and have the electrons move within them. Then, conservation of charge at the Y's can be seen in that electrons only change color as they move from one wire to another, but do not appear or disappear.