Add the Animation toolbar and play an animation in ArcMap

In this segment you’ll see how to open an existing map that contains an animation, add the Animation toolbar to ArcMap, and play the animation.

The Time View tab of the Animation Manager lets you preview time slices of an animation. In this example you see how to click in the Time View display area to view the population figures recorded for a 10-year period after 1800.

You can resize or move the Animation Manager so you can see the northeast portion of the country in the map display. It is easy to see that at this time, the population was clustered around this area of the country.

The format of the displayed time text is dependent on your computer’s regional time settings, so your time text format might be different from that in the graphics.

You can click in the Time View display area to view population figures recorded in the 10-year period after 1990. You may need to move the Animation Manager to see the counties in the West. There has been a significant increase in recorded population farther west by this time period.

To play the animation, click the Open Animation Controls button and click the Play button.

You'll see that the animation plays in the ArcMap display and in the graph.