Creating a Video from 3D Map

June 06, 2023 - by Bill Jelen

3D Map will let you tell a story by stringing together a series of scenes. You might show the whole country for 10 seconds, then zoom in to Florida and fly over Florida for a few seconds. Then fly to NYC and hover for a few seconds before flying to Southern California.

When you are finished, you can have 3D Map render the tour as a movie.

Here are some tips:

Do not put a Date field on your map. If you do, each scene will re-animate the time animation. Perhaps you want to start with a zoomed out view with a time field. Let the map animate. Then, remove the time field and add scenes as you zoom in to each location.

To build a tour, start with the map zoomed out and click Add Scene.

Then, zoom in to the first area of interest and click Add Scene.

If you need to explain one point in a scene, right-click and choose Add Annotation. Add the Scene and then remember to remove the annotation before the next scene.

In the Tour Editor pane on the left side, click the first scene.

In the Field List on the right side, click the Cog Wheel, then Scene Options. Add an Effect so you have some motion during the scene. If you need to pause for a longer period at one scene, increase the Scene Duration. Keeping adding additional scenes and adjusting the duration.

Test the tour by clicking Play Tour.

When the tour looks good, choose Create Video. Note that it can take almost an hour to render a short video.

This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel

Title photo by William Bayreuther on Unsplash