Visualize temporal data

Geographic data often has an important temporal component. Temporal data—information about features and attributes at different points in time—can help you explore phenomena as diverse as crime trends, the spread of an invasive species, and traffic accident patterns.

Overview

Visualize temporal data overview video

• Video length: 9:35
• This video was created with ArcGIS Pro 2.8.

In this tutorial, you'll visualize changes in international tourism in New Zealand over the past 20 years—changes that have major business implications for the country. Optionally, you'll export your visualization as a video file that can be shared to social media platforms.

• Estimated time: 45 minutes, 60 minutes with optional section
• Software requirement: ArcGIS Pro

Open the project

Tourism is an important and growing part of New Zealand's economy. It currently generates over 6 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and is a major employer. Knowing where tourists come from, which parts of New Zealand they visit, and how long they stay helps planners choose the right locations for hotels, tour companies, and other services.

In this tutorial, you'll visualize changes in the Chinese tourism market in New Zealand. China is the second-most-important tourist market for New Zealand and is expected to surpass Australia as the largest source of visitor revenue within a few years. You'll use data from New Zealand's International Visitor Survey over a 20-year period to map this increase.

Note:

This tutorial uses a Microsoft Excel file. To work with Excel files in ArcGIS Pro, the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 driver must be installed on your computer. To check whether it's installed, in the Windows taskbar search box, type Settings. In the Apps & features pane, search for Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016. If it isn't there, see Guide to connecting to Excel files in ArcGIS Pro for installation instructions.

1. Start ArcGIS Pro and sign in if necessary.
2. On the start page, under your recent projects, click Open another project.

   Note:

   If you already have a project open, click the Project tab on the ribbon. In the list of menu items on the left, click Open. On the Open page, click Portal and click Open another project at the bottom of the page.

3. On the Open Project dialog box, under Portal , click ArcGIS Online .

   Note:

   If you see ArcGIS Enterprise listed instead, you must add a portal connection or set your active portal to ArcGIS Online. Alternatively, you can download the tutorial data from a browser.

4. At the top of the dialog box, in the Search box, type Visualize temporal data tutorial and press the Enter key.
5. In the list of search results, click one of these two project packages to select it:
   • If you are following the tutorial in version 2.7 or 2.8 of the help system, click Visualize temporal data v270.
   • If you are following the tutorial in an earlier version of the help system, click Visualize temporal data.

   Note:

   If there is more than one project package with this name, look at the Owner column. Select the item with the owner name ArcGISProTutorials. If you don't get any results, see No search results are returned.

6. Click OK.

   The project opens with a map showing New Zealand's territorial authority boundaries and a few cities. Territorial authorities are the second tier of local government in New Zealand, below regional councils.

   

7. In the Contents pane, right-click the Cities layer and click Attribute Table .

   The table contains records for 10 cities. Because of a display filter on the layer, only five features are displayed and labeled on the map.

8. In the Contents pane, right-click the Territorial Authorities layer and click Attribute Table .

   The table contains records for 68 territorial authorities. There are no attributes with information on tourism; that data is contained in a spreadsheet you'll add to the project.

9. Close the open attribute tables.

Add an Excel worksheet to the project

The Chinese tourism data is found in an Excel file attached to the project package. You'll add a worksheet from the file to your project as a table.

1. On the ribbon, click the View tab. In the Windows group, click Reset Panes and click Reset Panes for Geoprocessing.

   This ensures that the Contents, Catalog, and Geoprocessing panes are open and that other panes are closed.

2. On the ribbon, click the Map tab. In the Layer group, click Add Data .
3. On the browse dialog box, under Project, click Folders to show folders associated with the project.
4. In the window on the right, browse to Visualize_temporal_data > common data > userdata. Double-click ChineseVisitorsByTA.xlsx and click the 'Percent Chinese Tourism by TA$' worksheet to select it.

   

5. Click OK.

   The Excel sheet is added as a table to ArcGIS Pro and appears in the Contents pane.

   If you get an error message that the data type is not supported, see the note in the Open the project section above. You need to install the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 driver. After installing the driver, you can add the worksheet.

6. In the Contents pane, under Standalone Tables, right-click 'Percent Chinese Tourism by TA$' and click Open .

   

   Each column in the table lists a different territorial authority. Each row lists a year from 1997 to 2017. Cell values represent tourists from China as a percentage of all international tourists. Null values indicate missing or insufficient data—they do not indicate values of zero.

   Note:

   The Excel file is stored in your <user documents>\ArcGIS\Packages\Visualize_temporal_data\commondata\userdata folder. The Metadata worksheet in the file contains a link to the source data (which has been modified) and more information. This work is based on/includes Stats NZ’s data, which are licensed by Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

7. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

Transpose table fields

In the 'Percent Chinese Tourism by TA$' table, the temporal units (years) are rows and the geographic units (territorial authorities) are columns. In another table, you might find that the rows are geographic units and the columns are temporal units. In either case, temporal data in ArcGIS works best when unique spatiotemporal values are stored as separate rows in a single column.

This table has 21 rows for years and 64 columns for territories. You need to create a table that stores a row for each of the 1,344 (21 x 64) unique combinations of year and territory. You'll use the Transpose Fields tool to put the data into this format.

1. In the Geoprocessing pane, type Transpose Fields in the search box.

   As you type, search results are returned. The first result should be the Transpose Fields tool.

2. In the list of search results, click Transpose Fields to open the tool.
3. For Input Table, click the drop-down arrow and click 'Percent Chinese Tourism by TA$'.
4. Under Fields to Transpose, next to Field, click Add Many .
5. At the bottom of the drop-down list, click Toggle All Checkboxes to select all the fields. Scroll to the bottom of the list and uncheck Year.

   

6. At the bottom of the drop-down list, click Add.

   These fields will become rows in the output table.

7. Scroll to the bottom of the Geoprocessing pane. For Output Table, delete the entire path and type ChineseTourismTransposed.

   The path to your project geodatabase will be restored automatically.

8. For Transposed Field, type TerritorialAuthority.
9. For Value Field, type ChinesePercentageOfTotal.

   Note:

   The transposed field is a new field in the output table that will store the names of the territorial authorities. The value field is a new field that will store the Chinese tourism percentage values. You can use any name for these fields.

10. Click the Attribute Fields drop-down arrow (not Add Many ) and click Year.

    

11. Click Run .

    A new table is added to the Contents pane. You'll confirm that the table has been saved to your project geodatabase.

12. In the Catalog pane, expand Databases and expand visualize_temporal_data.gdb.

    

    The project geodatabase contains three items: the table you created and two feature classes that are the data sources of layers in the map.

    Tip:

    If you don't see the table, right-click the project geodatabase and click Refresh .

13. Close the 'Percent Chinese Tourism by TA$' table.
14. In the Contents pane, under Standalone Tables, right-click ChineseTourismTransposed and click Open .
15. Scroll through the table.

    

    The table has what you need: a separate row for each unique combination of year and territory. However, not all the fields have the correct data type.

16. Hover over the ChinesePercentageOfTotal field heading.

    

    The field values represent percentages, but the field data type is Text. You need a numeric field that displays decimal points. Since you can't change the data type of a field, you'll add a new field and populate it with the same values.

    Note:

    When an Excel table is processed in ArcGIS Pro, fields that contain values of mixed data type—including a combination of numbers and null values—are output as text fields. Learn more about the limitations of working with Microsoft Excel files in ArcGIS Pro.

17. Hover over the Year field heading.

    The data type for this field is Double, a numeric type that supports numbers with high-precision decimal values. Although you can display temporal data when the time values are stored as numbers (or text, for that matter), the best practice is to store them in a date field. You'll convert the year values to dates.

    Learn more about ArcGIS field data types.

Add a field and calculate its values

You'll add a numeric field to the table and calculate the tourism percentage values, currently stored as text, into the new field.

1. In the Contents pane, click the ChineseTourismTransposed table to select it, if necessary.
2. On the ribbon, under Table, click the View tab. (Click the highlighted contextual tab, not the core View tab.)
3. In the Field group, click Add .

   The Fields view of the table opens. You use the Fields view to work with field properties. In the Fields view, each field in the ChineseTourismTransposed table is presented as a row, and each field property is presented as a column. The last row of the Fields view represents the new field you added.

4. In the last row of the Fields view, in the Field Name column, double-click the name Field to make it editable. Change the field name to ChinesePercentage and press the Enter key.
5. In the same row, in the Data Type column, double-click the default value Long. In the drop-down list of data types, click Float.

   Like Double, the Float data type supports decimal places, but it uses less storage space.

6. On the ribbon, on the Fields tab, in the Changes group, click Save .
7. Close the Fields: ChineseTourismTransposed view.

   The new field displays in the ChineseTourismTransposed table with <Null> values. Now you'll calculate values for the field.

   Tip:

   If you don't see the new field in the table, click Refresh Table at the bottom of the table view.

8. In the table, right-click the column heading of the ChinesePercentage field and click Calculate Field .

   The Calculate Field window appears. The Input Table, Field Name, and Expression Type parameters are set correctly.

   Note:

   For convenience, some geoprocessing tools open in a floating window. These tools can also be opened in the Geoprocessing pane.

9. In the Fields list, double-click ChinesePercentageOfTotal.

   

   The field name is added to the expression box under the list of fields. (The exclamation points are Python syntax.) When the tool runs, the new ChinesePercentage field displays the values calculated by the expression in the expression box—that is, the values in the ChinesePercentageOfTotal field. The difference is that the values are numbers instead of text.

10. Click OK.

    The ChinesePercentage field is populated with numeric values expressed to six decimal places.

11. Click the column heading of the ChinesePercentageOfTotal field (the text field) to select it. Right-click the selected heading and click Delete .

    

12. On the Delete Field prompt, confirm that you are deleting the correct field (ChinesePercentageOfTotal). Click Yes.
13. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

Convert time values to date format

It's a good practice to put time values in date fields. Although it's not necessary for this tutorial, some advanced analysis operations require it.

1. In the Geoprocessing pane, click Back .
2. In the search box, type Convert Time Field.

   The Convert Time Field tool should be the first search result.

3. Open the Convert Time Field tool.
4. Set Input Table to ChineseTourismTransposed.
5. Set Input Time Field to Year.
6. For Input Time Format, click Set Format . Click the Date Format drop-down arrow and click yyyy. Ignore the Locale setting.
7. For Output Time Field, accept Year_Converted. Confirm that the Output Time Type parameter is set to Date.

   

8. Click Run .

   The new field is added to the table and populated with dates.

   

9. Delete the Year field.
10. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

Join the table to the layer

To display the data by time, you need to join the ChineseTourismTransposed stand-alone table to the Territorial Authorities layer in the map. A join temporarily connects tables so that attributes from one table (usually a stand-alone table) can be queried or symbolized as if they belonged to another table (usually a layer attribute table).

A join requires that the two tables have a common attribute. In this case, both the Territorial Authorities layer attribute table and the ChineseTourismTransposed table have a field containing the names of territories.

There are 68 records in the Territorial Authorities table (the target table) and 1,344 records in the ChineseTourismTransposed table (the join table). Because one record in the target table will match many records in the join table—all records with the same territory name will match—the join is a one-to-many join. Learn more about joins.

1. In the Contents pane, right-click the Territorial Authorities layer and click Attribute Table .

   There is one record for each territory. Notice that the values in the Name field have underscores rather than spaces between words.

2. Make the ChineseTourismTransposed table active.

   Names in the TerritorialAuthority field are also separated by underscores. It's not necessary that the names (or aliases) of the common field be the same in both tables. However, it is necessary that the field values be formatted the same way.

3. Close the ChineseTourismTransposed table.
4. In the Contents pane, right-click the Territorial Authorities layer, point to Joins and Relates, and click Add Join .

   The Add Join window appears.

5. In the Add Join window, set the parameters as follows:

   • For Input Table, accept Territorial Authorities.
   • For Input Join Field, choose Name.
   • For Join Table, choose ChineseTourismTransposed.
   • For Join Table Field, accept TerritorialAuthority (or choose it, if necessary).

   

6. Hover over the warning icon next to the Input Join Field parameter.

   A ScreenTip informs you that the join field is not indexed. With a very large number of records, an attribute index improves performance. However, you don't need an index in this case.

7. Click Validate Join.

   When you validate a join, potential problems are analyzed, and information about the join is presented in a message box. In this case, there are no problems (apart from recommendations to index fields).

8. Click Close on the Validate Join message.
9. Click OK on the Add Join tool.

   When the process finishes, the Territorial Authorities attribute table is updated. The attributes from the ChineseTourismTransposed table are appended to the table.

   Note:

   The joined table has 1,348 total records, of which 1,344 are matched. Four of the original 68 records in the Territorial Authorities attribute table don't have matching records in the ChineseTourismTransposed table. (Recall that 64 territorial authorities were represented in the original Excel worksheet.) For the four unmatched records, null values are assigned to the joined fields.

10. Scroll across the table.

    You'll streamline the table display by hiding attributes that you don't need.

11. In the attribute table, right-click any column heading and click Fields to open the Fields view of the table.
12. In the Visible column, uncheck the check box in the column heading to turn off the visibility of all fields in the table.
13. Check the Visible check boxes next to the following fields to make them visible:

    • TA_name (with the alias Name)
    • ChineseTourismTransposed.ChinesePercentage (with the alias ChinesePercentage)
    • ChineseTourismTransposed.Year_Converted (with the alias Year_Converted)

    Note:

    The prefix ChineseTourismTransposed. indicates that these fields come from the joined table. The join applies only to the map layer, not to its source feature class. You can make a join permanent by exporting the layer to a new feature class.

14. On the ribbon, on the Fields tab, in the Changes group, click Save .
15. Close the Fields: Territorial Authorities view.

    The Territorial Authorities table displays three fields: Name, ChinesePercentage, and Year_Converted.

    Tip:

    If necessary, click Refresh Table at the bottom of the table view.

16. Close the table.
17. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

Visualize trends with a line chart

You'll create a line chart to examine the Chinese tourism trend over time. There are too many territorial authorities to show in a single chart, so you'll focus on those that contain features in the Cities layer. To select these territories, you'll use Select By Location.

1. On the ribbon, click the Map tab if necessary. In the Selection group, click Select By Location .

   The Select By Location window appears.

2. Confirm that Input Features is set to Territorial Authorities.
3. Click the Relationship drop-down arrow and click Contains.
4. Click the Selecting Features drop-down arrow and click Cities.

   

   When the tool runs, territorial authorities that contains cities are selected. Recall that there are 10 features in the Cities layer—five are filtered out by a display query. Features filtered out by a display query can still be used for selection and analysis, unlike features hidden by a definition query.

5. Click OK.

   On the map, 10 territorial authorities are selected. The number of selected features is confirmed in the status bar at the bottom of the map view.

6. In the Contents pane, right-click the Territorial Authorities layer, point to Create Chart , and click Line Chart .

   The Chart Properties pane and an empty chart view appear. Before configuring the chart, you'll apply a selection filter so the chart displays only features selected on the map.

7. In the row of tools at the top of the empty chart view, click Filter By Selection .

   The Filter By Selection button is highlighted in blue to indicate that it is selected.

8. In the Chart Properties pane, on the Data tab, click the Date or Number drop-down arrow and click Year_Converted.

   On the chart, the years appear on the x-axis.

9. In the Chart Properties pane, under Numeric field(s), click Select . In the selection window, check the ChinesePercentage check box and click Apply.

   Values for the percentage of Chinese tourists appear on the y-axis; however, the values are summed by default, which doesn't make sense in this context.

10. In the Chart Properties pane, click the Aggregation drop-down arrow and click <none>.

    The values are now correct on both axes. The points on the vertical lines represent different territorial authorities, but the chart is hard to interpret.

11. In the Chart Properties pane, next to Split by (optional), hover over the information icon .

    A ScreenTip illustrates the Split by parameter. Setting this value to the Name field creates a separate line for each selected territory.

12. Click the Split by drop-down arrow and click Name. Click Yes on the Chart properties warning message.

    Because you placed a selection filter on the chart, only 10 territories are displayed.

    

    On the chart, a line is drawn for each of the 10 selected territorial authorities. The color of each line matches the feature's symbol color in the Territorial Authorities layer.

    Tip:

    To see the chart better, maximize your application window or float the chart view and resize it.

Modify chart properties

To improve the chart's appearance, you'll change the title and axis labels, choose different line colors, and edit the legend labels.

1. In the Chart Properties pane, click the General tab.

   Tip:

   If your pane is narrow, you may not see all the tabs. You can widen the pane or click More and choose the tab you want from a drop-down list.

2. Under Chart title, change the title to Chinese Percentage of International Tourism in New Zealand. Press the Enter key.

   The chart title is updated.

3. Under X axis title, change the text to Year and press the Enter key.
4. Under Y axis title, change the text to Percentage and press the Enter key.
5. In the Chart Properties pane, click the Series tab.

   A table displays the territorial authorities by their values (their names as stored in the attribute table), chart symbols, and chart legend labels.

   

   The value, symbol, and label for Auckland are highlighted.

6. Change the line colors and labels for the 10 selected territorial authorities. Use the table below as a guide or choose any colors you like.
   1. To change a symbol's color, click the symbol in the Symbol column and click a color on the color palette.
   2. To change a label, click in the Label column to make the label editable and replace the text. Press the Enter key to commit your edit.

   Chart series modifications

   Value	Color	Label
   Auckland	Mars Red	Auckland
   Christchurch_City	Electron Gold	Christchurch
   Dunedin_City	Cretan Blue	Dunedin
   Hamilton_City	Quetzel Green	Hamilton
   Invercargill_City	Fir Green	Invercargill
   Napier_City	Big Sky Blue	Napier
   Nelson_City	Citron Yellow	Nelson
   Queenstown_Lakes_District	Heliotrope	Queenstown
   Rotorua_District	Cattleya Orchid	Rotorua
   Wellington_City	Cherry Cola	Wellington

   

   Your chart should look similar to the image.

   A quick glance shows that the trend for most of the territories is consistently upward. The trend starts earlier for Rotorua (famous for geysers and geothermal activity) than for the other territories.

7. In the chart legend, click the name of any territory.

   The name dims in the legend and its line disappears from the chart. This allows you to compare a few values at a time.

8. Click the territory you dimmed to display it again.
9. Dim the following territories:

   • Christchurch
   • Dunedin
   • Invercargill
   • Nelson
   • Queenstown

   The territories that are still displayed are located on the North Island. The five that you dimmed are located on the South Island.

10. Hover over any data point on a line.

    

    You see the name of the territorial authority, the year represented, and the percentage of Chinese tourism for that year. For example, Chinese tourism in Rotorua peaked in 2012, when nearly a quarter of international tourists came from China.

11. Keep working with the chart on your own.

    For example, turn off the lines for the North Island territories and turn on the lines for the South Island territories. The values tend to peak later—perhaps suggesting that the South Island became a destination for tourists who had previously visited the North Island.

    Tip:

    You can update the chart with interactive selections on the map. On the ribbon, click the Map tab. In the Selection group, click the Select tool . Hold the Shift key and click a territory on the map to add it to the selection set. Hold the Ctrl key and click a selected territory to deselect it.

    You can also use Filter By Extent on the chart view—either by itself or in combination with Filter By Selection . When Filter By Extent is selected, only features visible in the map extent are shown on the chart.

12. When you're finished, close the chart view and the Chart Properties pane.

    Tip:

    To reopen the chart, expand the Territorial Authorities layer in the Contents pane. Right-click the chart (at the bottom of the layer legend) and click Open .

    Two other chart types—data clock and calendar heat chart—are specifically designed for representing temporal data. These chart types are useful for temporal data that is measured in fine increments such as months, weeks, or days.

13. On the ribbon, click the Map tab, if necessary. In the Selection group, click Clear to deselect the selected features.
14. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

Symbolize the territorial authorities

On the map, the territories are symbolized by unique values. You'll switch to a graduated color scheme and use lighter and darker hues to represent lower and higher percentages of Chinese tourists.

1. In the Contents pane, right-click the Territorial Authorities layer and click Symbology .

   The Symbology pane appears.

2. Under Primary symbology, click the drop-down arrow and click Graduated Colors.

   The field to symbolize is automatically set to ChinesePercentage (the only available numeric field).

3. Click the Color scheme drop-down arrow. Under the list of color schemes, check the Show names check box.
4. Scroll through the list of color schemes. Near the bottom, click Yellow-Orange-Red (5 Classes) to select it.

   By default, the data is grouped into five classes. The class breaks reflect value clusters in the data (natural breaks), but are not intuitive to a map reader. You'll change the class break values.

5. In the lower part of the Symbology pane, on the Classes tab, edit the Upper value and Label columns as shown in the table below. Click twice to make a cell editable. To commit an edit, press either the Tab or Enter key, or click in a different cell.

   Upper value	Label
   2	Less than 2%
   5	2% - 5%
   10	5% - 10%
   20	10% - 20%
   Leave unchanged	More than 20%

6. Click the More drop-down arrow and click Show values out of range.

   A gray symbol is added below the other symbols. This symbol will represent null values in your data—territories that have no information for a particular year.

7. Right-click the gray symbol to open the color palette. Click Gray 20%.
8. Change the label for the out of range data to No Data.

   

   On the map, the Territorial Authorities layer reflects the new color scheme. The colors look faint because transparency was applied to the original symbology.

9. In the Contents pane, make sure the Territorial Authorities layer is selected. On the ribbon, under Feature Layer, click the Appearance tab. In the Effects group, in the Transparency box , replace the current value with 0 and press the Enter key.
10. In the Contents pane, turn off the Cities layer. Expand the Territorial Authorities layer to see its legend.

    

    At the moment, only one value is symbolized for each feature on the map. To see the data change year by year, you'll enable time on the layer.

11. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

Enable time and visualize the data

The display of temporal data is controlled with a time slider that's similar to a video player. A contextual Time tab on the ribbon provides more settings for displaying the data. The time slider and ribbon tab become available when you enable a layer's time property.

1. In the Contents pane, right-click the Territorial Authorities layer and click Properties .
2. On the Layer Properties dialog box, in the list of tabs on the left, click Time.
3. In the time properties, click the Layer Time drop-down arrow and click Each feature has a single time field.

   Time Field is automatically set to Year_Converted, and Time Extent is set to the range of the data.

   

4. Click OK.

   The time slider appears at the top of the map view.

5. Hover over the time slider to see its controls.

   

6. On the left side of the time slider, click Time disabled to change it to Time enabled .

   

   The time span collapses to the first value in the range, and the map displays the data for 1997. In that year, Chinese tourists did not make up more than 2 percent of international visitors to any territory. Many territories have no data for that year.

   You'll configure the time slider to play back the data in one-year intervals.

7. On the ribbon, under the contextual Map tab, click the Time tab. In the Snapping group, check the Time Snapping check box.
8. Under the check box, click the Time Snap Interval drop-down arrow and click Years.

   This setting corresponds to the yearly intervals of the data.

9. In the Current Time group, change the Span setting to 0 and press the Enter key.

   

   This ensures that only one year's worth of data displays at a time. To learn more about configuring time, see Configure time slider settings.

10. In the Playback group, click Play All Steps .

    The map plays through the data, displaying the percentage of Chinese tourists in each year. In the last few years of playback, there is a noticeable increase—especially on the South Island.

    Tip:

    You can also play the data by clicking Play All Steps on the time slider.

11. In the Playback group, use the Adjust Playback Speed slider to decrease the speed. Play the data again.
12. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

Create an animation and export a video (optional)

In this section, you'll create an animation of the playback and export it as a video file. This allows you to share your work with others, such as business owners and stakeholders in the tourism industry, who may not have access to ArcGIS Pro.

Animations are composed of keyframes, which are like stations or waypoints, and the transitions between them. Now that you have configured time properties for the Territorial Authorities layer, you can import the time slider steps (one step per year) to the animation. Each time step becomes a keyframe.

To learn more about animation, see Animation basics.

1. On the ribbon, click the View tab. In the Animation group, click Add .

   An animation is created for the current map. The empty Animation Timeline pane appears under the map view. On the ribbon, under Map, a contextual Animation tab appears.

   Before you create keyframes for the animation, you'll make sure that you're zoomed to the correct map extent.

2. In the Contents pane, right-click the Territorial Authorities layer and click Zoom To Layer .
3. On the ribbon, under the contextual Map tab, click the Animation tab if necessary. In the Create group, click Import and click Time Slider Steps .

   The Animation Timeline pane populates with 22 keyframes. The first keyframe represents the animation at zero seconds (00:00.000). Each subsequent keyframe corresponds to the data for one year. (It may take a few moments for the thumbnail images to display in the keyframes.)

   

   On the Animation tab, in the Playback group, the Duration setting is one minute and three seconds (01:03.000). There are 21 slide transitions, which means each slide is visible for three seconds. Since there is no camera movement (your viewpoint in relation to the map doesn't change), you don't need that much time between keyframes.

4. On the Animation tab, in the Playback group, replace the duration value with 00:21, and press the Enter key.

   The time stamps in the Animation Timeline pane are adjusted. Each transition now takes one second.

   As the animation plays, you can show which year the data represents. You'll add dynamic text—information that updates during playback.

5. In the Animation Timeline pane, under Keyframe Gallery, click the first keyframe to select it. Scroll to the end of the gallery, press Shift, and click the last keyframe.

   

   The dynamic text you add in the next step will be applied to all the selected keyframes—in other words, throughout the animation.

6. On the Animation tab, in the Overlay group, expand the Overlay gallery.

   

   Note:

   Depending on the size of your ArcGIS Pro window, you may see an Add Overlay button rather than gallery items. Click the button to display the gallery.

7. In the Overlay gallery, under Dynamic Text, click Map Time .

   A box with a dynamic text expression appears as an overlay on the map view.

8. In the dynamic text box, replace the default two-line expression with <dyn type="animation" property="startTime" format="yyyy"/>.

   

   The expression creates a single time label, rather than a start and end time, and formats it to display the year rather than a full date.

9. On the map view overlay, click Close to commit your edits.

   You'll make the dynamic text larger and preview the animation.

10. On the Animation tab, in the Overlay group, change the font size to 48.

    Tip:

    Options to format overlays are found on the Overlay tab of the Animation Properties pane. To open the Animation Properties pane, on the Animation tab, in the Edit group, click Properties .

11. In the Playback group, click Play . (Don't click Play on the time slider—changes you've made to the animation are not reflected in the time slider playback.)

    

    You're ready to export the animation as a video file.

12. On the Animation tab, in the Export group, click Movie .

    The Export Movie pane appears. The default settings output a video configured for YouTube in .mp4 media format. You can experiment with other movie export presets and settings.

13. In the Export Movie pane, in the File Name box, change the default file name (New Zealand) to Chinese Tourism NZ 1997 to 2017.

    

14. Optionally, click Browse and browse to a different folder to save the video.
15. Click Export.

    The export takes some time. You can track the progress at the bottom of the pane. When the process is finished, a Play the Video link appears in the lower left corner of the pane.

16. Click Play the Video.
17. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save to save the project.

In this tutorial, you visualized temporal data in various ways: as a line chart, as a dynamic map display, and—if you did the optional section—as an animation. Temporal data displays can draw attention to important patterns. In this case, visualizing the Chinese tourist market in time and space can help business analysts see where significant changes are occurring and where new tourism efforts should be focused.

More sophisticated temporal data analysis can be done with the tools in the Space Time Pattern Mining toolbox. For more advanced tutorials using temporal data analysis, see Investigate pollution patterns with space-time analysis and Identify popular places with spatiotemporal data science at Learn ArcGIS.