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A Solution for Using Dynamic Data Sets in Electronic Presentations

¹ Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, WCC, Room 306, 330 Brookline Ave. Boston, MA 02215.

Received October 25, 2005; accepted after revision February 28, 2006.

 
Address correspondence to C.-S. Yam (csyam{at}caregroup.harvard.edu).

WEB This is a Web exclusive article.

Abstract

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OBJECTIVE. This article offers a solution for displaying dynamic data sets in PowerPoint for today's electronic presentations using Shockwave Flash software.

CONCLUSION. Shockwave Flash is the most recommended file format for presenting dynamic data sets at the annual meetings of radiology societies. Detailed instructions and examples are provided for first-time Flash users who wish to take advantage of this alternative solution for using dynamic data sets with PowerPoint in electronic presentations.

Keywords: computers in radiology • electronic presentation • Flash movies • PowerPoint • Shockwave Flash

Introduction

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In a recent AJR article, step-by-step instructions for preparing common movie clips (i.e., AVI video [Microsoft], MPEG Movie [MPEG], and QuickTime video [Apple]) for online journal publication are described [1]. Detailed information for uploading sample movie clips for the AJR online is also available in this article. Although these types of movie clips are most appropriate for online journal publication and desktop PowerPoint (Microsoft) presentations, they cannot be used directly in PowerPoint for electronic presentation—a relatively new presentation format adopted by most of today's radiology society meetings such as the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), and the European Congress of Radiology (ECR).

Electronic Presentation

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Historically, presentations at radiology society annual meetings were either projected using PowerPoint from a local computer in a large conference room or mounted as large posters (e.g., 1.2 x 2-4 m) in a huge exhibit hall. Because of the large number of presentations and time-limited schedules, conference attendees and presenters must rush between conference rooms and exhibit halls; and many do not have the opportunity to attend all the presentations they would like. One solution for this has been to provide online access for all presentations, in an electronic presentation (e-presentation) format. With this format, conference participants can attend selected scientific and poster presentations during regular meeting hours and view the others online on their own schedules. In 2003, the ECR first launched the e-presentation format during its annual meeting. Both the RSNA and the ARRS followed suit in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Now, e-presentations not only provide a solution for the conference attendees to view presentations effectively during the meeting, but also create an opportunity for other researchers to access the presentation materials afterward.

Problems Using Animations in Electronic Presentations
For e-presentations, presenters are required to upload all the files for their presentations to a central repository such as a Web server before the meeting. During the meeting, attendees view the presentations using Web-based PowerPoint viewers at client computers with network connections to the Web server. However, this Web-based viewer is significantly different from the regular desktop PowerPoint application. As such, many common PowerPoint features, such as slide animations, object transitions, macros, and movie clips, are not supported by the Web-based viewer. Therefore, academic radiologists should be careful not to include animations or movie clips in PowerPoint when presenting in this new format. For instance, at the RSNA 2004 annual meeting, slide animations and movie clips were completely prohibited in PowerPoint for e-presentation format.

View larger version (44K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 1A —Creating and saving Flash (Adobe Systems) document as standard source file. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for creating and saving Flash document as standard source file (with .fla extension).

View larger version (62K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 1B —Creating and saving Flash (Adobe Systems) document as standard source file. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for creating and saving Flash document as standard source file (with .fla extension).

View larger version (51K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 1C —Creating and saving Flash (Adobe Systems) document as standard source file. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for creating and saving Flash document as standard source file (with .fla extension).

View larger version (40K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 1D —Creating and saving Flash (Adobe Systems) document as standard source file. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for creating and saving Flash document as standard source file (with .fla extension).

Macromedia Flash
Flash, a cross-platform, vector graphics-based software technology, was initially developed by Macromedia in April 1998 [2]. Many of today's new operating systems (i.e., Mac OS [Apple Computer] and Windows [Microsoft]) are compatible with Flash. Because of its success in delivering dynamic and interactive contents for many Internet-based applications, Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in April 2005 [3]. The current version of Flash is Macromedia Flash 8 Professional for both Mac and PC systems.

Although Flash is a common tool for developing animations for today's Internet applications and is a recommended media type (Shockwave Flash movie [in swf files]) for e-presentations at most of the annual meetings of radiology societies, it is still unfamiliar to many academic radiologists. To my knowledge, no articles have been published specifically for academic radiologists using Macromedia Flash for this purpose. In this article, basic instructions for creating movie loops from dynamic data sets using Macromedia Flash specifically for e-presentations are provided.

In a future article, basic techniques for creating slide presentations using Macromedia Flash as an alternative to PowerPoint will be presented. At the ARRS 2006 annual meeting in May, presenters could use either PowerPoint or Flash for their e-presentations.

View larger version (57K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 2A —Importing sequence of images into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing sequence of images into application. In C, note that Movie Controller is located at left top corner of window.

View larger version (19K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 2B —Importing sequence of images into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing sequence of images into application. In C, note that Movie Controller is located at left top corner of window.

View larger version (63K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 2C —Importing sequence of images into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing sequence of images into application. In C, note that Movie Controller is located at left top corner of window.

View larger version (39K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 3A —Exporting Flash (Adobe Systems) movie. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show parameters used at Publish Settings windows when exporting Flash movie. See Figure S3C in supplemental data online for completed movie.

View larger version (78K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 3B —Exporting Flash (Adobe Systems) movie. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show parameters used at Publish Settings windows when exporting Flash movie. See Figure S3C in supplemental data online for completed movie.

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Development Tool
To create Flash movies, users will need to have the Macromedia Flash application installed onto their desktop computers. A free trial version of the fully functional application can be downloaded for 30-day evaluation [2]. For this article, a copy of Macromedia Flash Professional 8.0 (PC version, $97 for a single-seat educational license) was purchased through a volume licensing vendor [4]. The installation process is straightforward for both Mac and PC computers.

Example 1: Create Flash Movie from a Sequence of Images
In this example, the process for creating a Flash movie from a sequence of CT images (512 x 512, gray-scale, n = 50) in JPEG format is described.

Begin by launching Macromedia Flash and select New from the File menu to open the New Document window (Fig. 1A). There are seven types of documents available; select the first option, Flash Document, and then click the OK button. A new Flash document with default name Untitled-1 will be created (Fig. 1B). Similar to the Photoshop (Adobe) layout, the main working area is located at the center of the screen. In Flash, this area is called the Stage. To the left of the Stage is the Tools window, which contains a variety of drawing tools for creating graphics and text objects (e.g., lines, circles, text box) on the Stage. On top of the Stage is the Timeline window. A little red rectangle on top of the Timeline is the frame controller, which allows users to navigate between time frames during movie development. The use of this frame controller for inspecting a movie loop will be discussed later. In addition to these three windows (Stage, Tools, and Timeline), there are a number of panels (e.g., Project, Color, Library, Components, Component Inspectors, Behaviors, Actions, Properties) containing functions for modifying the properties of Flash objects created on the Stage. These functions can be as simple as specifying the foreground color for a line object, or as complicated as using programming codes (i.e., Flash ActionScript) to import server documents and uploading data to a remote database.

Depending on the user's preference and Flash version, the layout of these windows and function panels may vary. For instance, the screen layout used in this article contains the Stage, Tools, Timeline, and four function panels (Fig. 1B). The function panels can be accessed from the Windows menu. For this simple tutorial, these function panels are not required. Instead, select Hide Panels from the Windows menu to close all the panels.

The next step is to specify the dimensions of the Flash document. Because the purpose of this example is to create a movie loop for PowerPoint, the dimensions of the document should be the same as the source images (i.e., 512 x 512 pixels for this case). Select Document from the Modify menu to open the Document Properties window, and enter 512 x 512 for dimensions (Fig. 1C). At the same window, use the color picker to select solid black as the background color, and enter 10 fps (frames per second) for frame rate. A frame rate between 10 and 30 fps is appropriate for this purpose [1]. Click the OK button to close this window. Select Save As from the File menu to save the current document to a source file (using file extension .fla). In this example, CT.fla is used as the filename (Fig. 1D).

The next step is to load the JPEG images onto the Stage. Select Import\Import to Stage from the File menu to open the Import window, and then navigate to the image folder containing the source images (Fig. 2A). Select the first image of the sequence (in this case CT01.jpg) and then click the OK button to start loading. A message box then appears prompting for loading multiple images in the same sequence, in this case 50 images (Fig. 2B). Click the OK button to accept this option. Subsequently, all images with the same sequential name (in this case, CT01.jpg to CT50.jpg) will be loaded onto the Timeline as separate frames (Fig. 2C). At the Timeline window, click and drag the frame controller to inspect the movie loop. Flash also provides a Movie Controller for movie playback (Fig. 2C). If the Movie Controller is not yet displayed, select Toolbars\Controller from the Windows menu to make it visible. The Movie Controller provides basic navigation functions (Stop, Rewind, Reverse, Play, Forward, and End). Users can also select Test Movie from the Control menu to test-view the Flash movie. During the preview, the images will display continuously, similar to a traditional movie loop.

It is important to select the first image as the starting point during the image selection process. If the selected image is not the first one, then some of the earlier images in the same sequence will not be loaded. For instance, if CT26.jpg is selected as the first image in this example, only the second half of the sequence will be loaded.

The last step is to export this movie loop as a Flash movie file (Shockwave Flash [in swf file]). Select Export\Export Movie from the File menu to open the Export Movie window, navigate to the destination folder, enter the filename (CT.swf for this example), and click the Save button to continue (Fig. 3A). The Export Flash Player window will then appear (Fig. 3B). In this window, adjust the JPEG quality to 100% for best image quality (Fig. 3B). Next, click the OK button to create the file. The file size of the Flash movie (CT.swf) created in this example (Fig. S3C) is 1.6 MB. The steps for importing this sample Flash movie into PowerPoint are discussed in the next section.

Example 2: Convert Common Movie Clip to Flash Movie
The steps involved in this example are similar to the process used in example 1. The only difference is in image loading. Instead of loading a sequence of images, a movie clip is selected as the source data. For this article, an uncompressed color AVI (Microsoft video) file of a 3D cardiac model obtained from a workstation (frame rate = 15 fps, movie length = 4.26 seconds, color depth = millions, file size = 96 MB) was used. File formats that can be imported into Macromedia Flash are listed in Table 1.

As instructed in the previous example, create a new source file, 3D.fla, with document properties of 512 x 512 pixels, solid black background color, and 12 fps. Next, select Import\Import Video from the File menu to start the Import Video wizard. This wizard contains five dialog windows. At the Select Video window (Fig. 4A), click on the Browse button, navigate to the movie clip location, select the movie, and open it. At the Deployment window (Fig. 4B), select the Embed-Video-in-SWF-and-Play-in-Timeline option. With this selection, the movie clip is embedded into the Flash file rather than linked. At the Embedding window (Fig. 4C), select both the Place-Instance-on-Stage and Expand-Timeline-if-Needed options for creating new time frames for the entire movie clip. At the Encoding window (Fig. 4D), select the Flash 8 - High Quality (700kbps) option from the drop-down menu for the highest image quality and software compatibility. At the last window, Finish Video Import, click on the Finish button to start importing the video (Fig. 4E). After importing, images of the entire movie clip will be extracted and placed into separate time frames, in this case 58 frames (Fig. 4F). Similar to the previous example, select Test Movie from the Control menu to test-view the Flash movie, and then use the Export\Export Movie function from the File menu to export the Flash movie. For this example, the Flash movie (3D.swf) (Fig. S4G) is now reduced to 1.5 MB from the original 96-MB AVI file.

View larger version (64K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 4A —Importing AVI (Microsoft) movie clip into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing AVI movie clip into application. See Figure S4G in supplemental data online for completed movie.

View larger version (64K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 4B —Importing AVI (Microsoft) movie clip into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing AVI movie clip into application. See Figure S4G in supplemental data online for completed movie.

View larger version (60K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 4C —Importing AVI (Microsoft) movie clip into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing AVI movie clip into application. See Figure S4G in supplemental data online for completed movie.

View larger version (63K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 4D —Importing AVI (Microsoft) movie clip into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing AVI movie clip into application. See Figure S4G in supplemental data online for completed movie.

View larger version (59K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 4E —Importing AVI (Microsoft) movie clip into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing AVI movie clip into application. See Figure S4G in supplemental data online for completed movie.

View larger version (75K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 4F —Importing AVI (Microsoft) movie clip into application. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show process for importing AVI movie clip into application. See Figure S4G in supplemental data online for completed movie.

To create an animated GIF, follow the steps described in examples 1 and 2 but select Animated GIF as the export file. To specify this setting, select Publish Settings from the File menu. At the Formats tab, select GIF Image as the export option (Fig. 5A). At the GIF tab, select Animated as the Playback option and Adaptive at the drop-down menu for Palette Type (Fig. 5B). Click on the Publish button to continue. The animated GIF will be created and saved in the same folder as the source file. For this article, an animated GIF was created using the same image sequence as in example 1. The file size of this animated GIF (CT.gif) (Fig. S5C) is 2.2 MB.

View larger version (57K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 5A —Exporting animated GIF (graphics interchange format) image. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show parameters used at Publish Settings windows when exporting animated GIF image. See Figure S5C in supplemental data online for completed animated GIF image.

View larger version (62K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 5B —Exporting animated GIF (graphics interchange format) image. Screen captures of Macromedia Flash 8.0 (Adobe Systems) show parameters used at Publish Settings windows when exporting animated GIF image. See Figure S5C in supplemental data online for completed animated GIF image.

Importing Flash Movies into PowerPoint
Using Flash movie files (.swf) in PowerPoint is different from using other movie clips (e.g., .avi and .mov). Flash movies must be imported as a control object from the Control Toolbox. In PowerPoint 2003, if the Control Toolbox is not yet displayed, select Toolbars from the View menu and then select Control Toolbox to make it visible. On a PowerPoint slide, click on the More Controls icon from the Control Toolbox to open the drop-down list (Fig. 6A), and then select the Shockwave Flash Object. Next, use the click-and-drag action (left mouse button) to draw the control onto the slide. Then use the right mouse button and click on the control to bring up the Properties window (Fig. 6B). At this window, two basic parameters are required, Embed-Movie and Movie. Select True for Embed-Movie and type the complete filename of the Flash movie at the Movie box (e.g., C:\documents and settings\...\CT.swf). However, typing a lengthy filename with the entire system path is potentially an intimidating process. One solution for this is to place the Flash movie in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation before creating the Flash Object. By doing so, only the filename must be typed. For example, CT.swf was entered as the filename into the Movie box for this article (Fig. 6C). This is the Flash movie created in example 1. Next, click and drag the corner to resize the control. Once the control is resized, the first frame of the Flash movie will be displayed (Fig. 6D). Press the F5 key to test the slide show, and the Flash movie will play instantaneously because it is already embedded in PowerPoint.

View larger version (50K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 6A —Importing Flash Movie (Adobe Systems) onto slide. Screen captures of PowerPoint 2003 (Microsoft) show process for importing Flash Movie onto slide using Shockwave Flash Object (Adobe Systems).

View larger version (50K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 6B —Importing Flash Movie (Adobe Systems) onto slide. Screen captures of PowerPoint 2003 (Microsoft) show process for importing Flash Movie onto slide using Shockwave Flash Object (Adobe Systems).

View larger version (61K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 6C —Importing Flash Movie (Adobe Systems) onto slide. Screen captures of PowerPoint 2003 (Microsoft) show process for importing Flash Movie onto slide using Shockwave Flash Object (Adobe Systems).

View larger version (52K): [in this window] [in a new window] [as a PowerPoint slide]   Fig. 6D —Importing Flash Movie (Adobe Systems) onto slide. Screen captures of PowerPoint 2003 (Microsoft) show process for importing Flash Movie onto slide using Shockwave Flash Object (Adobe Systems).

Unlike other types of movie clips, which are linked to an external file using the file names and paths, Flash movies are loaded into PowerPoint files, and therefore they cannot be modified afterward. If the embedded Flash movie needs to be updated or replaced, delete the existing control and create a new one. Also, slides with Flash objects can be transferred between PowerPoint presentations using the copy-and-paste function.

Importing an Animated GIF File into PowerPoint
Because an animated GIF is an image, it can be inserted onto a PowerPoint slide using the drag-and-drop function. In addition, users can use the image processing tools in the PowerPoint Picture Toolbar to modify the animated GIF, such as contrast, brightness, and rotation, except for cropping.

To further expand this demonstration, the Shockwave Flash movies (CT.swf and 3D.swf) and animated GIF (CT.gif) created in our examples have been imported into separate PowerPoint presentations (see www.ajronline.org for Figs. S3C, S4G, and S5C). Click on the supplemental data file links to download and view these demo presentations.

Discussion

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One common problem in today's new e-presentation format adopted for most annual meetings of radiology societies is the issue of movie clip compatibility in PowerPoint. This compatibility issue is primarily caused by a file linkage problem between the movie file and the actual PowerPoint presentation hosted in the e-presentation system. As an alternative, Flash is recommended as the standard tool for creating digital animations for this purpose because Flash files can be securely imported into PowerPoint (embedded vs linked). However, Flash is still a relatively new and emerging technology for many academic radiologists. In this article, step-by-step instructions are provided for first-time Flash users wishing to take advantage of this alternative solution for presenting dynamic data sets with PowerPoint in e-presentations. Academic radiologists should be cautious, however, when attempting to present their existing PowerPoint files, which were created previously with linked movie clips, in today's e-presentations.

DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) images, a common source for many medical images, cannot be imported directly into most desktop media applications, including Flash. These images must first be converted into common image formats (e.g., JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and BMP). A list of many commercial and free resources is available on the RSNA Internet site for this purpose [5]. A general method for extracting DICOM images from MO (magneto-optical) disks and CD-ROM (read-only memory) has been previously published [6].

Although embedding Flash into PowerPoint is a potential solution for seamless presentation of dynamic data sets, users should be aware of the following two drawbacks. Flash is not free downloadable software; therefore, users may be required to invest in a personal copy. Also, the use of Shockwave Flash Object is unfamiliar to many radiologists compared with other PowerPoint features, and a learning curve must be expected.

References

Top Abstract Introduction Electronic Presentation Tutorial Discussion References

 

1. Yam C-S. Preparation of digital movie clips for on-line journal publication. AJR 2006;187 : W93-W102[Abstract/Free Full Text]
2. Macromedia home page. Available at: www.adobe.com/products/flash/flashpro. Accessed May 22, 2006
3. Adobe Web site. Available at: www.adobe.com. Accessed May 22, 2006
4. CDW Government Inc. home page. Available at: www.cdwg.com. Accessed May 22, 2006
5. Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Web site. DICOM page. Available at: www.rsna.org/Technology/DICOM/dicom.cfm. Accessed May 22, 2006
6. Yam C-S, Sitek A, Raptopolous V, Larson M. A simple method for extracting DICOM images from a magnetooptic disk. AJR2004; 183:529 -533[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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This Article Abstract Figures Only Full Text (PDF) "S" Figures Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Yam, C.-S. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Yam, C.-S. Social Bookmarking                      What's this? Hotlight (NEW!) What's Hotlight?