Spatial phenomena collected with time information can allow you to see what happened at a specific time, or what may happen in the future. By animating time-based data, you can visualize it at each step and see patterns or trends emerging over time. Examples of phenomena with data that are well suited for this purpose include hurricanes, tornadoes, and other meteorological events; population migrations; land-use and environment change; and wildfire or flood event progression.
Some map layers are time-enabled; they contain spatial datasets that include different information for the same location at different times. If a map contains time-enabled layers, it is time aware, and you can configure it to set the map time zone, display the data during a specific period of time, or animate the data over time.
Verify time data in a layer
You can determine whether a layer in a map is time enabled by referring to the item details for the layer.
- Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create content.
- On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Layers
to open the Layers pane. - Browse to the layer that contains time data, click Options
, and click Show properties. - In the Properties pane, click Information, and click More details
to open the item details page. - On the Overview tab, scroll to the Layers section and click the layer name to open the layer description.
If the layer contains temporal data, a section named Time Settings is included on the web page that appears.
Enable time on layers
You can set time properties on feature and imagery layers in ArcGIS Pro before you publish a feature layer, imagery layer, or map image layer (map service) to ArcGIS Enterprise. You can configure these time-enabled web layers to display time animation when you add them to Map Viewer.
You can also publish hosted feature layers that include temporal data and enable time on them from the layer's item page. This allows you and your organization (if you share your feature layers) to use the temporal data to create time-enabled maps.
To enable time on hosted feature layers, the hosted feature layer owner or an administrator can follow these steps:
- On the My Content tab of the content page, open the item page for a hosted feature layer with temporal data.
- In the Layers section on the Overview tab, click Time Settings.
- Check the Enable time check box.
- Choose specific events in time or time ranges with a start and end time to record the time data.
- Choose the field or fields in the data.
Note:
Supported date and time field types include the following:
- Date
- Date only
To learn more about supported field types, see Date and time fields in ArcGIS Online.
Note:
When working with time ranges with a start and end time, you must select the same field type for both Start time field and End time field.
- Click OK.
When this hosted feature layer is added to Map Viewer, time animation is enabled.
Set the map time zone
You can set the time zone of a map to customize how date and time are displayed in places such as pop-ups and tables.
To set the time zone, complete the following steps:
- Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create content.
- In Map Viewer, open the map containing time-enabled layers or add layers to a new map.
- On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Map properties
. - Under Time zone, choose one of the following:
- Select Device time zone to display the date and time using the time zone set for the device used to view the map.
- Select Specific time zone to display the date and time according to the time zone selected by the map author.
- Select Data's time zone to display the date and time based on the time zone that has been defined for the layer. No adjustments are made to the display of date info.
Note:
Options to configure time slider settings are disabled when using this time zone option.
Configure time slider options in a map
You can configure the time slider options to customize how time-enabled layers are displayed in a map.
- Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create content.
- On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Map properties , and click Time slider options.
- Make any of the configurations described in the subsections below.
- On the Contents toolbar, click Save and open
and click Save to save the time settings to the map.
Note:
You can also open the Time slider options pane by selecting the time-enabled layer and clicking Time
on the Settings (light) toolbar. Click Options on the time slider and click Time slider options . Optionally, on the Settings (light) toolbar, click Time to show and hide the time slider.Start and end points
Use the Time display drop-down menu to specify the time period for the time-enabled layer. Choose one of the following:
- Show current interval—Show data that is within a set time range.
- Show features progressively—Progressively show data that is within a set time range. The start time is always pinned to the start of the slider.
Time intervals
Specify how much data to display as time passes. Choose Length of one interval to specify the count and units for each time interval, or choose Total time divided into equal steps and specify the number of intervals.
Playback position
Choose whether to start the time animation at the beginning of the time span or at the time position last saved with the map.
Play rate
Set the speed at which the time intervals play. You can move the slider to increase and decrease the speed.
Turn off time animation
You can turn off time animation on maps containing time-enabled layers. To turn off time animation on a web map, complete the following steps:
- Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create content.
- On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Layers to open the Layers pane.
- Select the time-enabled layer.
- On the Settings (light) toolbar, click Properties
. - Turn off the Enable time toggle button.
- Repeat the previous steps for each time-enabled layer.