Chart types

10a: Spatial / Geospatial data

Recap: How to design viz idioms

Recap: Data Types

  • Tabular data
  • Networks
  • Geographic / spatial
  • Fields
  • Hierarchical

Spatial

Geospatial data

GeoJSON / TopoJSON (GeoJSON spec) (TopoJSON spec)

KML (spec)

Shapefile (SHP) (spec)

CityGML (spec)

There are a ton of GIS file formats.

D3 Graph Gallery

D3 Graph Gallery, by Yan Holtz

Geospatial (2D)

Libraries

Leaflet

Open Layers


Map Tiles

Open street map

Open map tiles

SLA OneMap API

Geospatial (2D)

Tools

Mapshaper

GeoJSON.io

QGIS


Platforms

Carto (formerly cartoDB)

ArcGIS, Esri

Google Maps API

Geospatial (3D)

Mapbox, MapboxGL

deck.gl

Cesium

Idiom: Map Markers / Bubble

What: Data

Geographic geometry data of points. Additional qualitative / quantitative fields.

How: Encoding

Point marks on a geographic map. Often allows for zoom, pan and rotate functions.

Why: Task

Task: Lookup, compare values, find spatial trends

Scale Color channel: If quantitative up to 8, if categorical up to 12.

D3 Graph Gallery - Leaflet

D3 Graph Gallery - Bubble map

Market cluster example, Mogul Datasuite

Idiom: Choropleth Map

What: Data

Geographic geometry data. Table with one quantitative attribute per region

How: Encoding

Space: use given geometry for area mark boundaries. Color: sequential (or divergent) segmented colormap

Why: Task

Task: Lookup, compare values, find spatial trends

Scale Color channel: If quantitative up to 8, if categorical up to 12.

D3 Graph Gallery - Choropleth Map

SG Population by Subzone vs OneMap Population Query

SG Elections

Idiom: Hexbin Maps

What: Data

Geographic data: lat/lon points, quantitative count attribute.

How: Encoding

Encode Use given geographic data geometry of points, overlay on hexbin map depening on zoom value.

Why: Task

Task: Find spatial trends, esp at different zoom values

Scale Color channel: Quantitative (up to 8)

D3 Graph Gallery - Hexbin Charts

Leaflet + D3.js, Tom Nightingale

SG Taxi Availbility, Yong Quan (repo)

GeoTwin work

Idiom: Tile cartograms

What: Data

Typically districts or states in a country

How: Encoding

Convert districts/states into boxes and lay them out in the rough shape of the country.

Why: Task

Use geography as a layout so we can quickly zoom into the district/state.

Scale Color channel: Quantitative (up to 8)

Tile Cartograms

Straits TImes Elections 2020

Idiom: Contour Map

What: Data

2D spatial field; geographic data. Derived Geometry: set of isolines computed from field.

How: Encoding

Encode Use given geographic data geometry of points, lines, and region marks. Use derived geometry as line marks.

Why: Task

Task: Get a sense of spatial shape

Scale Dozens of contour levels.

D3 contour map

Contour density maps

Mapbox - Isochrone Maps

Idiom: Vector Fields

What: Data

2D spatial field: geographic data. Each grid square - vector values (e.g. wind speeds, u and v)

How: Encoding

Encode vectors as arrow marks on a 2D spatial field

Why: Task

Task: Get a holistic sense of both direction and maginitude of the vectors. (e.g. wind speed and direction)

Scale Hundreds of thousands of marks.

ObservableHQ - Vector Fields

Climate Prediction Centre, NOAA

3D Volume Rendering

What: Data

3D spatial field

How: Encoding

A model of how light rays are absorbed, emitted, and scattered by the medium.

Why: Task

Task: Find anomalies, inspect 3D structure

Volume Rendering in webgl, Will Usher

For 3D scientific viz, probably good to work with a 3D library, like three.js

3D Viz (examples)

One Map 3D, SLA Singapore, (Cesium - I think)

National Map Australia, (Cesium)

Urban City Visualization, (three.js)

Questions?

Chi-Loong | V/R