You can visualize time-enabled data that is being updated frequently using the live mode on the Time Slider window. For example, you can visualize the latest location of animals you are tracking or the latest discharge observations at the stream gauges in a watershed area. Once you have set the time properties on the layer, you can use the time slider to visualize your data using the default historic mode or switch to live mode to visualize the data collected and available for the current system time.
To visualize the data in live mode, you will have to ensure that new data is being added to the underlying source data of the time-enabled layer to visualize any live data updates in the display. For example, if you are tracking animal locations, ensure that the data (in other words, the locations as well as the time) is being recorded in a point feature class as the data is being acquired.
When visualizing data in live mode, the time of the map is set to the current system time and the map is refreshed based on the time step interval you have set on the time slider. For example, if you have data that is updated with new records every minute, you can set the time step interval on the time slider to one minute. The time slider fetches the latest data updates after one minute and displays the data in the map. However, if you set the time step interval to five minutes, the time slider fetches and displays the latest data updates after five minutes.
- Learn more about setting the time step interval on the time slider
- Learn more about setting time properties on a layer
Using the live mode on the time slider
After setting the time properties on the layer, you can click the Live Mode button 
on the Time Slider window to toggle between the live mode and historic mode.
- Open the Time Slider window by clicking the Time Slider button on the Tools toolbar.
- Click the Time Slider Options button to open the Time Slider Options dialog box.
- On the Display tab, set the appropriate time step interval. The time step interval determines how often the slider will look for new data updates in the time-enabled layers in the display. For example, if you want to update the display with new data every five seconds, you can set the time step interval to 5 seconds.
- Click the Live Mode button on the Time Slider window.
The time slider control goes to the end time of the slider and the map time is set to the current time. The time slider control keeps updating every so often based on the time step interval that has been set. Also, the icon on the Live Mode button changes to
. - To stop visualizing data in live mode, you can either click the Live Mode button again or click any other control on the Time Slider window.
Once live mode is turned off, the time-enabled data in the past can be visualized in historic mode of the slider.