The Propeller Platform's Timeline feature is a powerful tool for visually tracking changes and progress on your worksite over time. By cycling through historical survey data, you can gain valuable insights into how your site has evolved.
What is the Timeline?
The Timeline provides an interactive way to view orthophotos from different survey dates on your map directly. When your site contains surveys with orthophotos, it appears as a slider at the bottom of your screen, allowing you to select and view specific survey dates.
How to Use the Timeline
Accessing the Timeline
The Timeline slider is available when viewing any site that has at least one survey with an orthophoto. Click on the Timeline tab to open it. This will display a selector allowing you to choose from all available survey dates.
Navigating Dates
- Click and drag the slider to "scrub" through different survey dates.
- You can also click on a date on the Timeline to jump to that specific survey's orthophoto.
Visualizing Changes
Survey Loading: To ensure fast performance, the Timeline loads up to 100 surveys centered around the currently selected Primary Survey (chosen via the Primary Survey Chooser in the top navigation bar). Navigating the Timeline allows you to view the orthophotos for these loaded surveys.
Visual Transitions: When you move along the Timeline, the orthophoto of the survey date you are currently viewing remains fully visible. The orthophoto of the previous survey date fades out, and the orthophoto of the next survey date fades in, creating a smooth transition.
Interaction with Survey Explorer: If the Timeline is open and active, the ability to toggle orthophoto layers directly from the Survey Explorer panel is temporarily disabled. Opening the Timeline will also clear any prior orthophoto selections in the Survey Explorer, ensuring the Timeline controls the displayed orthophoto.
Hidden Surveys: If you have selected a " hidden " survey (via the Primary Survey Chooser), the Timeline feature will be disabled. Hidden surveys are also hidden from the timeline by design, so enabling the timeline in this case wouldn’t make sense.
What the Timeline Shows (and What It Doesn't)
Orthophotos
The Timeline primarily changes the visual orthophoto (the georeferenced aerial image) that you see on the map.
Terrain Model for Measurements
The timeline does not change the underlying terrain model (surface) used for measurements (for example, volume calculations, stockpile measurements, and cross-sections).
- Measurements are always calculated based on the terrain model of the Primary Survey selected using the Primary Survey Chooser in the top navigation bar.
- If you use the Timeline to view an orthophoto from an older date but your selected Primary Survey is more recent, any measurements you make will use the terrain data from that more recent Primary Survey.
- To measure on historical terrain, you must select that specific historical survey as your Primary Survey using the Primary Survey Chooser in the top navigation bar.
Benefits and Use Cases
Visual Progress Tracking
Easily observe the progress of earthworks, construction phases, or other site activities over time.
Change Detection
Identify when and where changes have occurred on site, such as material movement, vegetation clearing, or structural development.
Activity Monitoring
Pinpoint areas of activity or inactivity between different survey dates.
Context for Ground-Level Photos
Use the Timeline in conjunction with the MEDIA tab. You can view historical aerial imagery while also seeing site photos (including 360° images) pinned to their geographical locations, providing a richer understanding of site conditions at various times.
Complement to Measurements
While the Timeline itself doesn't change the measurement surface, it can provide valuable visual context for your measurements. For example:
- You can create an elevation point measurement and then use the Timeline to see how the appearance of that specific spot has changed over past surveys, even though the elevation reading itself will come from the terrain of the Primary Survey.
- Measure the distance of a road and use the Timeline to visually track its construction progress over different dates.
Mastering the Timeline feature unlocks a new perspective on your worksite, transforming historical data into a clear visual story of its progress. It provides an intuitive way to track development, detect changes, and add context to site photos and measurements.
I still can't do it!
We wrote these articles to equip you with everything you need to get the job done on your own, but we understand that sometimes this isn't sufficient.
If you're stuck, you can connect with our support team by clicking the question mark button at the top right corner of your user portal.
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