Software to display change of positions for transition of image

Question

User Story:

I wish to help a teacher friend, who is co-ordinating children formations in the playground for a sports function at a free small-town school. Such as, forming the letter, K, forming a Hat etc, by positioning children in lines and vertices. After the children have made a formation, they would disperse or re-arrange to make another formation.

Requirements:

I need a software that gives the step-by-step, gradual or quick, transition from one picture to another picture, by serially numbering the positions of the students, as 1,2,3 and showing how the numbers/positions should change, in what order, to form the new image. I would prefer something small, open-source, portable, and for Windows, but that is not a strict criterion as much as the functional requirement itself. If the software does the job, we could put together the hardware/system requirements.

Side question : I do not know what are some google keywords or search phrases to find such software. I tried, position changing, image transition etc but the results are too broad to be useful. Let me know if I am missing that one great keyword that show such software.

Edit: From an SO chat hint 'Morphing', I ended up reading on Beier–Neely morphing algorithm, Blender, Simple Deform Bend Modifier etc, but they don't seem to give out the numbering positions etc. Another school does use such a tool, but couldn't contact.

Answer 1

By request, here is my comment as an answer: you might look at "drill design" software for drum/bugle corps. This software is not cheap, open source, small or portable, but (apparently) allows you to design marching drills. The three market leaders appear to be:

• PyWare
• Envision
• Field Artist

I do not know enough about any of these packages to tell you which are better or worse, but they might serve as a starting point for your research.

Answer 2

If you are willing to live with an online solution, there is a website called Micro Marching League which appears to be gratis for basic use. (There are paid add-ons which do not sound as if they apply to your situation.) The demonstration videos show many configuration changes.