About building animations in ArcGIS
There are different ways to build animations in ArcGIS depending on the type of animation you want to create. You might only need to create one animation track, such as to animate a layer through time. Alternatively, you can create multiple tracks that will be animated together when you play the animation, for example, an animation in which you are navigating through a scene where the surface is changing over time and the scene's lighting is also changing with time.
Animating the view
The view in ArcMap, ArcScene, and ArcGlobe can be animated in various ways. Following are common examples:
- Moving through a scene or globe
- Panning and zooming a map
- Moving the camera or view along a path
The track type you'll create to animate the view is a map view track in ArcMap, a camera track in ArcScene, and a globe camera track in ArcGlobe.
Animating layer properties
Layers in ArcMap, ArcScene, and ArcGlobe can be animated in various ways. Common examples include the following:
- Moving a layer (such as a car) along a path (ArcScene only)
- Changing layer visibility or transparency
- Sequentially displaying data without a time stamp (creating a group animation)
The track type you'll create to animate layer properties is a map layer track in ArcMap, a layer track in ArcScene, and a globe layer track in ArcGlobe.
Animating data through time
The following data can be animated through time in the display of ArcMap, ArcScene, or ArcGlobe. Depending on the how you want to visualize your temporal data, you can use the Time Slider available on the Tools toolbar or create a time animation. If you are just interested in visualizing your temporal data over time you should use the Time Slider. However, if you want to create a dynamic visual effect such as create a flyby while stepping through your temporal data, you should create a time animation. Common examples of using time animations include:
- Creating a flyby while animation your data over time
- Visualizing temporal data at different time scales
- Visualizing temporal data with varying timesteps
In ArcMap, you can also animate tables, feature class layers, and netCDF layers in a graph.
The track type you'll create to animate through time for the use cases above is the time track.
Learn more about animating data using time animations
Learn more about using the Time Slider for visualizing temporal data
Animating scene properties
The scene in ArcScene can be animated in various ways:
- Modifying the background color of a scene
- Altering the sun's position in a scene
- Exaggerating the terrain of a surface
The track type you'll create to animate scene properties in ArcScene is a scene track.