There are many good reasons to produce videos for your products, but two of the most important are that they generate interest and can help to explain complex concepts. In a brochure or online, you might try to do the same thing with a line diagram. You can import that same line diagram into your video, and animate it with a simple zoom effect, but often there is the opportunity to do so much more.

To illustrate this, let's look at a short sequence I've been working on for a video about ultrasonic level sensors, using this source image. So how might we go about making best use of that resource in our video?

Working in my image editing software, I cut out the sensor from the image, and then isolated the sensor within the tank outline without any of the transmit and receive elements. I then created individual images of the six transmit and receive elements. We now have eight individual elements.

Now, in our video editing software, we can put them all together. I started with the sensor zoomed in and centred, and then zoomed back out to 100% size at 0,0 coordinates. At 100% size, with a simple dissolve, the sensor can cross fade into the tank. We can then dissolve between the transmit and receive elements one by one. Add a voice over to explain the concept, and we've turned a simple line diagram into a really effective animated sequence. Here is the finished result.

We could also take those frames and turn them into an animated GIF like this, producing an effective resource for the product's web page.

So think a little more creatively about your line diagrams. Remember, every one could represent an opportunity to add value to your videos.