Illustration, pictorial material appearing with a text and amplifying or enhancing it. Although illustrations may be maps, charts, diagrams, or decorative elements, they are more usually representations of scenes, people, or objects related in some manner-directly, indirectly, or symbolically-to the text they accompany.

Animation, motion pictures created by recording a series of still images-drawings, objects, or people in various positions of incremental movement-that when played back no longer appear individually as static images but combine to produce the illusion of unbroken motion. The term animation applies to creations on film, video, or computers, and even to motion toys, which usually consist of a series of drawings or photographs on paper that are viewed with a mechanical device or by flipping through a hand-held sequence of images.

Multimedia has had an enormous impact on education. For example, medical schools use multimedia-simulated operations that enable prospective surgeons to perform operations on a computer-generated 'virtual' patient. Similarly, students in engineering schools use interactive multimedia presentations of circuit design to learn the basics of electronics and to immediately implement, test, and manipulate the circuits they design on the computer. Even in elementary schools, students use simple yet powerful multimedia authoring tools to create multimedia presentations that enhance reports and essays.