Grids, Frames, Charts and Maps
The Data & Layout panel holds blocks that you drop on a scene and then fill with content: grids and frames take photos and videos, charts and tables take numbers, visualizers follow your audio, and maps take places and routes. This article explains how to add and fill each one.
Open the Data & Layout panel
Section titled “Open the Data & Layout panel”Click Data & Layout on the rail. It’s there in the Animation, Video Editor and Full Editor modes. In any mode, you can also press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on Mac) and run Open Data & Layout Panel.
The panel is one long list with these sections: Cursors, Grids, Frames, Charts, Tables, Visualizer and Maps. Each section shows a few rows. Click Show more under a section to see all of it. The search box at the top, Search grids, frames, charts, maps and cursors…, searches every section at once. You can type “2x2”, “donut” or a country name, for example.
Click a tile to add it to the current scene.
A grid is a layout of several cells, such as 2 columns, 2 x 2, Large left, two right or Filmstrip. Each cell is a frame you can fill with a photo or video. A grid behaves like a group, so you can move, resize, rotate and animate it as one item.
- In Grids, click a layout. Hover over a tile to see its name
- Drag a photo or video from the Upload, Image / vector, Video, GIF or Brand panel onto a cell. You can also drop a file from your computer onto a cell
- To work on one cell, double-click the grid to select that cell. Its frame controls then appear in the toolbar (see below)
The panel stays open while you fill cells, so you can drop media into one cell after another.
Frames
Section titled “Frames”A frame is a single shaped placeholder. Media you put in it is cropped to the frame’s shape. The frame shapes are grouped into Basic, Polygons, Stars & bursts, Curves & blobs, Flowers, Paper, Devices, Signs & bubbles, Arrows, Cuts & notches, Letters and Numbers & symbols.
- In Frames, click a shape
- Fill it by dragging a photo or video onto it, or select the frame and click Add media in its toolbar. The Upload panel opens, and you can switch to Photos, Videos, GIFs, AI image, AI video or Brand from the chips at the top of the canvas
- Click the media you want
Frame controls
Section titled “Frame controls”Select a frame, or double-click into a grid cell, to see these toolbar buttons:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Add media / Replace | Fills an empty frame, or swaps the media in a full one |
| Fit the whole picture / Fill the frame (crops) | Switches between showing all of the picture inside the frame and filling the frame edge to edge. New media starts out filling the frame |
| Reposition media | Lets you pan and zoom the media inside the frame without moving the frame |
| Frame shape | Changes the frame to any other shape, including letters and numbers |
Charts and tables
Section titled “Charts and tables”Charts and tables turn a small table of numbers into a graphic that can animate in. Pick a starting design from Charts or Tables, then edit its data.
- In Charts (or Tables), click a design to add it
- With the chart selected, click Chart data & style in its toolbar (for a table, Table data & style). The panel opens on the left
- Under Type, choose the kind of chart
- Edit the numbers in the Data grid, or paste them in (see below)
- Style it and choose how it animates in
The chart types are Bar, Stacked, Horizontal, Line, Area, Scatter, Pie, Donut, Radial, Gauge, Radar, Funnel, Waterfall, Bubble, Treemap, Heatmap, Pictogram and Table. A pie or donut shows the first value column.
Enter your data
Section titled “Enter your data”The Data grid works like a small spreadsheet:
- Each column has a name and a type. Label columns name the categories, and Value columns become the series
- Click + Add row, or the Add column button (+), to grow the table. Use the trash buttons to remove a row or column
- Click Expand to edit the data in a bigger window
- Give a category or series a picture with the small image button: pick an emoji, type or paste one, or paste an image URL. Use Key icons below the grid to choose where the pictures show: In the legend, On the marks or Filling the marks
To bring in data from elsewhere:
- Click Paste from a spreadsheet (the clipboard button above the grid)
- Paste CSV text, or cells copied from Excel or Google Sheets
- Click Import
A chart holds up to 500 rows and 50 columns, and shows up to 12 series. Cells hold up to 200 characters, and formulas are pasted as plain text, not calculated.
Style the chart
Section titled “Style the chart”Below the data you’ll find:
- Colours: palettes (Default, Ocean, Sunset, Forest, Berry and Monochrome) and a Text color
- Text: Size, Show values and Decimals
- Layout: Legend with its Position, Align and Legend size, and for charts with axes, Axes, Axis labels, Grid lines and Dashed grid
- Shape: options for the current type, such as Corner radius and Bar width % for bar charts, Line width and Point size for line charts, or Hole % for a donut. Tables have Striped rows and a Header color
- Look: Fill (Solid, Gradient, Soft or Outline), Hand-drawn and Glow
Animate a chart
Section titled “Animate a chart”Under Animate in, pick a Style: None, Grow, Draw line, Draw by hand, Fade or Sweep. Then set the Duration (ms), Stagger (ms) and Easing.
To animate the numbers themselves, for example a bar chart race, move the playhead into the chart on the timeline. The panel then says “Keyframing at … edits become keyframes”, and any number you change becomes a keyframe at that moment. The eye buttons beside each row and series bring it in or take it out from that moment on. For bar charts, Rank rows by value (Largest first or Smallest first) re-sorts the bars as the values change. When the playhead is outside the chart, edits change the data itself. See Keyframes, Motion Paths and Camera Moves.
Audio visualizers
Section titled “Audio visualizers”A visualizer is a block of bars, waves or rings that moves with your audio.
- In Visualizer, click a design to add it
- With it selected, click Visualizer audio & style in its toolbar
- Under Audio source, leave Automatic to follow the scene’s first audio clip, or pick a specific clip. If the scene has no audio yet, click Add audio
- Choose a Style: Bars, Ladder, Mirror bars, Dots, Spikes, Wave, Blob, Area, Mirror area, Contour, Radial or Rings
You can also change its Colours and Background, how it responds (Bands, Sensitivity, Noise floor, Smoothing (ms)) and its Shape (mark width, line width, fill, layers, inner radius and Rounded caps). Until audio plays under it, the visualizer shows a resting shape.
Maps can show the world, a continent or a country, highlight places, draw animated routes and color countries by your data.
Add a map
Section titled “Add a map”The Maps section of the panel offers several ways to start:
- Describe a map: type what you want, for example “A route from Oslo to Tokyo, camera following”, and click Generate. Check the preview, then click Insert or Try again. Each generation uses 2 AI credits
- Continents: click Europe, Asia, Africa, N. America, S. America or Oceania
- A country or region: type its name in the search box at the top of the panel and click it under Places
- Presets: ready-made maps grouped into Start here, Travel (routes and camera moves, already keyframed), Data, Globe and Looks
Edit a map
Section titled “Edit a map”Select the map and click Map style, view & routes in its toolbar. The panel has five tabs.
- Basemap: Flat map or Globe, with a Detail level (Standard or High)
- Look: restyles the map’s colors in one click. Routes, data and keyframes stay as they are
- Text, Animate in (how the map arrives) and Colours, including Land, Water and Borders
- Highlight a place: paints one country, state or province in the accent color and names it. Use the eye button to hide or show the name
- Move & zoom the map: turn this on, then drag inside the map to pan, scroll to zoom and double-click to zoom in. While it’s off, dragging moves the map item on the scene. The Move map button in the toolbar does the same thing
- Zoom, Fly to (type a country or city), Frame everything on this map and Exact position (longitude and latitude)
- When the playhead is inside the map, camera changes become keyframes, so you can animate the camera flying from place to place
- Add a route adds a line that draws itself as the map plays. Add stops with Add a stop — a city or country…, or click Add by clicking and click the map
- Draw on the map: click each stop on the map, then double-click or press Esc to finish
- Set the route’s Shape (Arc, Great circle or Straight), its Marker (Dot, Icon, Image or None) and what to Show (Line and marker, Line only or Marker only)
- Camera rides the marker makes the camera follow the route. Zoom in on it adds a close-up. Click Play the ride to watch it
- Frame route fits the camera around the route, and Draw across the item makes the line draw from start to finish over the map’s time on the timeline
- Add a Pin, Label, Callout, Highlight (color in a country or state) or Spotlight (dim everything else)
- Drop a pin by clicking the map places a pin exactly where you click
- Paste a table of places and values into the data grid, the same way as for charts
- Under Join, choose the Place column and Value column. The panel lists any rows it couldn’t match to a place
- Show as Colour, Bubbles or Both, and choose a Colour scale
- Add a Legend or a Counter, and click Grow values from zero to make the numbers count up
Satellite and street basemaps
Section titled “Satellite and street basemaps”Under Basemap there are also image-based maps: Satellite, Satellite (daily), Street map and Terrain. Editing with them is free, but exporting a design that uses one costs AI credits for the map tiles. The panel shows an estimate, such as “~3,000 tiles when you export”. Satellite maps cost 3 AI credits per 1,000 tiles (at least 2 per export), and street and terrain maps cost 1.5 per 1,000 tiles (at least 1). The flat map and the globe never cost credits.
These maps carry the imagery provider’s credit line on the map and in the export, as the license requires. If a basemap shows setup, it isn’t available yet, and the map keeps drawing as the flat map.
Cursors
Section titled “Cursors”The Cursors section at the top of the panel adds an animated mouse pointer that glides and clicks, which is useful for product demos. Click a pointer to add it, then draw its route from its toolbar.