Use Playback Controls

Use this when

You have a recording open in the viewer and need to play it, pause it, or move through it one ping at a time.

Before you start

• A recording must be loaded. If the viewer is empty, open a recording from the library first.
• The playback controls appear at the bottom of the viewer below the sonar image.

Play and pause

1. Click the Play button (triangle icon) in the center of the control bar to start playback. The sonar image scrolls forward in real time.
2. Click Pause (two vertical bars) to stop. The image freezes at the current ping.
3. Press Space or K on the keyboard to toggle between play and pause at any time.

Step one ping at a time

1. Click Previous ping (single left arrow) to move back one ping.
2. Click Next ping (single right arrow) to move forward one ping.
3. Press Arrow Left or Arrow Right on the keyboard to do the same thing without clicking.
4. Hold Shift while pressing an arrow key to jump 10 pings at a time.

Jump back or forward 10 pings

1. Click Back 10 pings (double left arrow / rewind icon) to jump back ten pings.
2. Click Forward 10 pings (double right arrow / fast-forward icon) to jump forward ten pings.

Reset to the start

1. Click Reset to start (skip-to-beginning icon, leftmost button) to return to ping 0.

Play in reverse

1. Press J on the keyboard to play in reverse at 1x speed. Press J again while reverse playback is running to ramp up the speed.
2. Press L to play forward. Press L again while playing forward to ramp up the speed.
3. Press Space or K to stop at any point.

What you should see

The sonar canvas scrolls as playback runs. The elapsed time counter in the bottom-left of the scrub bar updates. The ping index shown in the telemetry strip changes with each step.

If it does not work

• Controls are grayed out — no recording is loaded, or the file failed to parse. Close and reopen the recording.
• Keyboard shortcuts do nothing — click anywhere inside the viewer first to focus it, then try again.
• Playback stops immediately at the end — that is expected behavior. Click Reset to start and press Play again.