We rarely stop to think of the science behind the animated cartoons, shows and movies that we eagerly consume from childhood to adulthood but it should come as no surprise that Canadians have been instrumental in many areas of its development.

For week 22 of our series, we bring you Key-Frame Animation Software. In the 1970s, Nestor Burtnyk and Marceli Wein, working at the NRC, invented the world's first key-frame animation software.  A keyframe is a frame that defines the beginning or end of a transition in an animation or video. Keyframes are anchor points that tell video editing software when to start and stop an animation. The software then fills in the transition between the keyframes, creating the illusion of continuity.