Animated Territorial Data Extractor (ATDE): A Computer-Vision Method for Extracting Territorial Data from Animated Historical Maps

Abstract: We present Animated Territorial Data Extractor (ATDE), a computer vision tool that extracts quantitative territorial data from animated historical map videos. ATDE employs HSV-based color segmentation, RGB channel filtering, and Direct-Neighbor Filtering to identify and count pixels representing territorial control. Combined with preprocessing for temporal alignment and cross-video scaling, the pipeline converts animated videos into structured time-series data. We demonstrate the tool on ten Chinese dynasties (200 BCE - 1912 CE), producing year-by-year pixel counts that align with expected historical patterns. While not a substitute for authoritative historical datasets, ATDE is well-suited for educational demonstrations, preliminary data exploration, and comparative analysis of territorial dynamics. The tool requires no pre-existing shapefiles and can be applied to any animated map video given seed colors and basic configuration. Code and examples are available on GitHub.