Animate Views

SpaceStat allows you to view a slideshow or to scroll through time in any data visualization (map, box plot, scatter plot, histogram, table...). All toolbars can be docked or free-floating. For all views except the map, the animation is a slideshow, with abrupt changes between data values. Maps can be shown that way, or SpaceStat can smooth or interpolate the values for a map movie.

Animation Toolbar

Use the play, pause, stop, and forward frame and loop buttons to animate the datasets in your view.

Play begins the slideshow, from the time shown on the display.

Pause stops the slideshow but holds the current time in the display. To restart at this time, press play.

Stop returns the slideshow to its first frame.

Forward frame allows you to flip through the slideshow at your own speed.

Loop indicates you want the slideshow to play continuously, rather than stopping after all of the slides have been shown.

Time slider

You can click and drag on the time slider to move the slideshow forward or backward in time. You can use it independently of the animation toolbar, or to adjust an animation while it's progressing. The animation will continue in the same time step size after you let go of the slider.

Display date/time

You can use the up and down arrow keys to change the date/time of the animation. In this example, you can click on and change the month, date and year.

Animation step size

To change the interval of the time between steps that are visualized, go to "Animation> Set step size." You can set whether you want to visualize your data in intervals of year, month or day, or by hours, minutes or seconds.

Use exact time

If you choose to "use exact time," the animation will jump forward by a set time increment (say 365 days instead of a year, or 30 days instead of a month). If you leave "use exact time" cleared, the animation will jump forward by the step size from the initial date in the dataset. Thus, if the step size is 1 year and the first time is January 1, it will jump forward to the next January 1. If "use exact time" is checked, it will jump forward 365 days, and so the date will wander a bit from January 1 as leap years occur.