Spatial Studio provides a new standalone Cesium Timeline widget starting from Release 23.2.

The Cesium Timeline widget in Spatial Studio provides the following capabilities:

• Dataset filtering.
• Serves as a hub for controlling all kinds of spatiotemporal data (such as live, historic, moving objects, and so on).

  The only exception being the GeoJSON URL based datasets. These datasets do not cater to Cesium timeline as the external URLs may not have the capability to provide GeoJSON corresponding to a time value, but are rather simply refreshed to provide newer values every x seconds.

• Offers a scalable solution to add multiple layers of different dataset types at once that can be time-synced as required.

The following figure shows the Cesium Timeline Widget on a map visualization in Spatial Studio.

The key concepts of the Cesium Timeline are as follows:

• Cesium Timeline Modes: The timeline supports two modes of operation. If even one layer corresponding to a live dataset is listening to the timeline, then the mode of operation is LIVE. Otherwise, the mode of operation is always HISTORIC.
• Cesium Clock Start Time: Starting point of the current range of timeline. This is the point in time from which the Cesium clock starts ticking.
• Cesium Clock Stop Time: Ending point of the current range of timeline. This is the point in time until which the Cesium clock ticks. However upon reaching the end, the timeline behavior depends on the mode:
  • LIVE: The timeline will move ahead by updating the start time and stop time values as per the current time.
  • HISTORIC: The timeline will loop back to the start time.
• Cesium Clock Current Time: The current time frame of the clock. It begins at the Cesium clock start time and ticks every 500ms. Optionally, you can slide the pointer on the timeline manually to set your current time.

  Also note the following with respect to the type of the spatiotemporal dataset:

  • Live Spatiotemporal Dataset: The Cesium clock current time value for such datasets is configured to always be pointing to current UTC time (unless manually changed).
  • Non-Live Spatiotemporal Dataset: If no other dataset is added to the timeline, then the Cesium clock for such a dataset automatically sets its range to minimum and maximum of the timestamp column, and the Cesium clock current time starts from the minimum value.
• Multiplier: Multiplies to the interval at which the clock ticks (500ms) in order to make the clock jump ahead or rewind accordingly.
• Timeline Playback Controls:
  1. Pause: Stops the timeline from animating and throwing tick events. The timeline pauses at current timeline frame.
  2. Forward and Backward Play Buttons: Makes the timeline animate in the chosen direction and includes the multiplier value (+/- Multiplier * 500ms)
• Cesium Timeline settings: Allows you to control the timeline settings.