Continuous area cartograms?

[dmennenoh]

Anyone have any experience with these in AS3?

I am needing to produce something like this:

http://politicalmaps.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/2-2004-population-cartogram.png

[kglad]

i don't know any simple way to do that dynamically.  i would use the displacementmapfilter to do that, but learning how to use the displacementmapfilter is difficult.

[dmennenoh]

I've found a JS implementation, was just hoping someone had done that actual algorithm in AS3. I don't think displacement filter would do it, though I could be wrong. I'd just worry about the mapping getting to blurry - the proper algorithm actually changes vertex placements and so the map stays clear... Thanks.

[kglad]

the displacementmapfilter would work perfectly for that.  for an example of how it works (dynamically) check http://www.kglad.com > snippets > displacement.

but it might be easier to convert from the js code (or just use it to load a html page in a swf).

[dmennenoh]

Displacement map - _might_ be ok for fudging it only. Certainly it would not be perfect. True cartograms are vector - for instance if your data had Rhode Island as some max value - disp map would look like crap, and adjacent states would be too big... while a proper cartograms would scale the points to make the lines still crisp. RI could be big while Delaware still small - not possible with disp map. I'm really looking to do this right. Going to dig into the JS tonight I think.