Setting the time zone you want to visualize your data in

The time slider allows you to visualize your temporal data in different time zones. By default, the time zone of the time slider is set to none, which means that the time-enabled data will not be transformed to any time zone. Optionally, you can specify the time zone you want to visualize your data in.

Specifying the time zone on the time slider aligns various datasets from different time zones correctly along the time line. For example, if you have two temporal datasets, one collected in (GMT -08:00) Pacific Time (U.S. and Canada) and the other in (GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada), you can visualize these two datasets without being transformed into any time zone or you can specify a different time zone, for example, (GMT -06:00) Central Time (U.S. and Canada).

If no time zone is specified on the time slider, the data will be drawn based on time values that are not transformed to any time zone. For example, if the time on the time slider is 08:00:00 AM, then the data collected at 08:00:00 AM in both the datasets will be drawn. However, if the time zone of the time slider is set to (GMT -06:00) Central Time (U.S. and Canada), then at 08:00:00 AM in Central Time, the layer containing Eastern Time zone data will display the data collected at 09:00:00 AM, whereas the layer containing Pacific Time zone data will display data collected at 06:00:00 AM.

Steps:

1. Open the Time Slider window by clicking the Open Time Slider Window button on the Tools toolbar.
2. Click the Options button to open the Time Slider Options dialog box and select the Time Display tab.

   By default, the time zone is set to the time zone on your computer.

3. In the Time zonetime zone drop-down, choose the time zone you would like to visualize your data in.
4. Optionally, uncheck Adjust for daylight saving changes. Unchecking this option will ignore any time adjustments for displaying data that was collected with Daylight savings.

The time slider will now use the time zone specified to display temporal data.

Caution:

On specifying a time zone on the time slider, the full time extent of the time slider is also adjusted to encompass the time values for which you may have valid data. For example, if the time extent of your data collected in (GMT -08:00) Pacific Time (U.S. and Canada) is from 10:00:00 AM on January 1, 2010 to 11:00:00 PM on January 1, 2010, then by default the time slider's full time extent will be from 10:00:00 AM on January 1, 2010 to 11:00:00 PM on January 1, 2010. However, if you choose to visualize this data in (GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada) then the time extent of the time slider will be modified to 01:00:00 PM on January 1, 2010 to 1:00:00 AM on January 2, 2010. In order to visualize data within the modified time extent, you will have to hit the Full time extent button to change the time extent reported on the time slider.

Learn more about setting the full time extent of the time slider