Time series data can come from a variety of different sources, from GPS units to census data. Where most GIS applications are great at showing where things are geospatially, the dimension of time can often be difficult for users to easily see. And when you are dealing with time series data, this becomes a pretty big issue. Our approach has been to display time as the vertical axis, allowing features to be displayed in their chronological order. This allows the user to see the sequence of events or data points. This is crucial when dealing with movement data, as the order of these points really dictates the underlying movement.

In this simple example, we look at how a user can take a time series data set of location points from ArcGIS10 and visualize them in a 3D time viewer, which shows a path between the location points over time. Taking it one step further, the time series data can be animated, allowing the user to play back the sequence and see the movements in real-time.

Take a look at the video demonstration: