Enable time animation

Note:

Some workflows may require specific privileges. For more information about user types, roles, and privileges, see the Accounts topic.

You can use time animation to configure the way time-aware data appears on a map. See Time-aware data to learn about temporal content.

When you enable time animation on a map layer, you use the  Time  tab of the Analysis pane to configure the field in the data that contains the time information. You can also configure the animation slider to specify playback speed, time interval, and whether cumulative data is displayed on the map.

To add a time animation, the data used to create the map layer must include date and time information. For more information, see Data preparation.

To enable time animation on a map layer, complete the following steps:

  1. Sign in to ArcGIS.
  2. From the map tools, click Analysis Analysis.

    The Analysis pane appears.

  3. Click Time animation Time animation.
  4. Choose a layer to modify from the Active layer drop-down menu.
  5. Turn on the Enable time animation toggle button.

    A time slider appears at the bottom of the map with the default options.

  6. To turn off time animation on a layer, turn off the Enable time animation toggle button.
  7. Optionally, click Close Close on the time slider to turn off the time animation.
  8. Click Close Close in the Analysis pane to close the pane.

Time slider

The time slider appears as an animation control overlaid on the map. You can define the time intervals. Time slider settings apply to all time-animated layers in a map.

Note:

To turn the time slider on or off, click the Close button Close on the slider.

The time slider controls described below allow you to interact with time animation:

  1. Play—Click the  Play button Play  to begin the animation. When the animation is playing, this changes to the  Pause button Pause.
  2. Previous—Click the Previous button Previous to move the animation to the previous time interval. This control is active only while the animation is playing.
  3. Next—Click  the Next button Next to move the animation to the next time interval. This control is active only while the animation is playing.
  4. Drag the interval along the slider to manually control the data that appears on the map. You can also move the interval handles individually to display a specific time range or adjust the interval.
    Note:

    When you select features on a time-aware layer and run the time animation, only the features visible during the specified time period are visible during the animation.


In this topic
  1. Time slider