Exporting an animation as sequential images

Once you have created an animation, you can export it as a collection of sequential images. These sequential images represent a series of animation stills that can be generated in Windows Bitmap (*.bmp) or JPEG (*.jpg) format. You can think of this as pulling your animation apart and generating a series of one-by-one images similar to a comic book.

The resultant output can then be used as input frames to create videos (AVI or QuickTime format) using the Raster To Video tool. Also, you can use the output images to other video formats (not supported in ArcGIS) in third-party video creation software. The exported sequential images can be edited before being processed as videos. For example, you can add titles or captions to the images.

When exporting animations to sequential images, you can select image settings such as the image filename prefix and the number of images to be exported per second of the animation duration.

Using the steps below, you can export animations as sequential images.

1. Click the Animation drop-down list and click Export Animation.
2. On the Export Animation dialog box, set the Save as type to Sequential Images.
3. Select a location to save the images to.
4. Choose or type a new Folder name which the images will be output to.
5. Optionally, click Options to set properties such as exporting the entire application window or exporting custom resolution images. Click OK.

   When exporting an animation from ArcMap, you can choose to export an ArcGIS Video layer (for use in ArcGlobe) along with the exported sequential images. To do so, check Create ArcGIS Video layer on the Export Options dialog box.

   Learn more about ArcGIS video layers

6. Click Export.
7. On the Sequential Image Exporter Options, set the Filename prefix, Image Type (BMP, JPEG), and the Image per second.

   Filename prefix—The image prefix is used to provide a descriptive name to the output sequential images. For example , if Image prefix = Image, the result is in sequential images with the names Image_1, Image_2... Image_n, where n is the total number of sequential images output.

   Images per second—The number of images that will be output per second of the animation duration. For example, if an animation of duration = 10 seconds is exported to sequential images with Images per second = 10, a total of 100 sequential images will be written to disk.

8. Click OK.

   The sequential images will be exported to the specified folder.

   Note:

   When exporting animations as sequential images you can set options such as exporting using custom resolution (width and height) or recording the entire application on the Export Options dialog box before starting the export.