Set the time track properties

There are five basic steps to create an animation through time.
They are:
1) Create Keyframes and a Time Track
2) Set the Time Track Properties
3) Set the Keyframe interval and time units
4) Preview and set the Time Text properties
5) Play the animation.

In this segment you'll see how to set the time track properties.

Open the Animation Manager dialog box and click the Tracks tab. Click the time track to select it and click Properties. In the Track Properties dialog box, click the Time Track Properties tab.

The source object (a layer in this case) to which a track is attached can have one time field or a start time field and an end time field. It is useful to have an end time field in cases where the time stamps are irregularly spaced so that there will always be a time stamp displayed as the animation is played.

Click the Start Time Field drop-down arrow and click the date or time field with the time each feature should appear in the time sequence. In this example that is DATE_ST in the County Population layer. Since this is a date-formatted field, the Format dropdown list is disabled. If your field is a string or a double, you will need to set the field format.

Next, click the End Time Field drop-down arrow and click the date or time field with the time each feature should disappear from the time sequence. In this example that is DATE_END. This field is also a date-formatted field. You do not have to have End Time values to create an animation, but the are helpful, especially when you have irregularly spaced start times.

Click Calculate Times to associate the earliest time in the start time field with the first keyframe, and the latest time in the end time field with the last keyframe. The Start Time keyframe will now have a time value of January 1, 1800. The End Time keyframe will now have a time value of January 1, 2000. You’ll see these values set on the Keyframes tab of the Animation Manager later.