How do I do animations?

[EdHartnett]

Is there documentation anywhere describing how to do animations?

Thanks!

[Sylvain Herlédan]

The answer really depends on the type of animation you want to create, can you provide more details about the animation you have in mind?

For example there are solutions for timelapses over a fixed area: you can either use your mouse wheel over the timeline to move the current datetime or let Syntool shift it perdiodically by a fixed step using the animation controls (hidden by default, use the Shift+Y shortcut to toggle their visibility).
Note that it can only work for a limited volume of data as you have to preload all the images in the cache of your web browser before you play the animation, otherwise the result will not be smooth at all.

[EdHartnett]

Awesome! Thanks for the help!

Is there a way to save animations?

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The answer really depends on the type of animation you want to create, can you provide more details about the animation you have in mind?

For example there are solutions for timelapses over a fixed area: you can either use your mouse wheel over the timeline to move the current datetime or let Syntool shift it perdiodically by a fixed step using the animation controls (hidden by default, use the Shift+Y shortcut to toggle their visibility).
Note that it can only work for a limited volume of data as you have to preload all the images in the cache of your web browser before you play the animation, otherwise the result will not be smooth at all.

When I animate any of the Sentinel-3 products, the result is very jumpy.

Is there a good example anywhere of a product and data selection that results in a smooth animation?

[Sylvain Herlédan]

Syntool is not able to save the animations unfortunately, you will have to install a screen recording software such as OBS (https://obsproject.com/) to capture the content of the Syntool window and save it as a video file.

In order to improve the smoothness:

• if possible, reduce the amount of data Syntool has to load and display: zoom and pan the map so that it only shows your area of interest
  
• make sure you only select the products you want to see in your animation, the server should reply a bit faster if it only has to return the relevant results
  
• play your animation at least twice: the first time it will be very jumpy because Syntool has to download images from the network, but if you try again immediately after you reach the end of your animation then Syntool will load images from the web browser cache (it should a lot faster)
  
• if you used the animation controls, you will notice that there is a dropdown menu that lets you choose the animation speed (next to the "Play" button): sometimes choosing a slower speed results in smoother animation
  

[EdHartnett]

OK, thanks I will give those animation tips a try...

[Salo12]

I had the same question but I see that here they have left good answers .. Thank you all very much!

[Charlotte124]

Is there documentation anywhere describing how to do animations?

Thanks!

 There are plenty of it available online