3D map – an overview

What is it for?

Use this template for visualizing large geographic datasets over time. You can input any data with locations in latitude and longitude format as well as GeoJSON regions and polyline features, but it becomes especially powerful with data including timestamps, such as live traffic, financial transactions, disease case reports, weather events, and seismic activity. 

Events are shown as pulses on an interactive map, optionally scaled and coloured based on the data.

In addition to the points layer, you can also add GeoJSON regions to this template. This is useful if you'd like to add (optionally extruded) regions on top of a base map along with your points.

How to get started

1

Creating a 3D point map or heatmap

At a minimum, you'll need a spreadsheet of points with columns for latitude and longitude, for example:

latitude	longitude
-6.081689835	145.3919983
-5.207079887	145.7890015
-5.826789856	144.2960052

If you only have place names and no latitudes and longitudes, you'll need to geocode your data. Various online tools, for example latlong.net, can help with this. 

This will display points on the map, but the timeline will be hidden without a Start time column binding.

You can also supply the following information in your Points layer:

• Start time: Determines when the circles appear. If left blank, all the points will appear at once. If selected, it creates a timeline and shows dots over time. The date format must be specified in the settings panel. 
• End time: Determines when the circles disappear. If not specified, the circle remains for the default duration specified in the settings panel.
• Animation group: Use this to animate points between different values at different times in the timeline. Rows with the same content will animate from one set of values to another based on their start time.
• Counter category: Used to categorize points, and to determine their color when using a categorical color palette.
• Counter value: Determines how much each row is counted for by the counter. If not bound to a column, each row's count is treated as one.
• Label: A label which will appear next to the point. The label can be styled in the Labels settings.
• Scale: Numerical data, determines the size of the points.
• Color: Determines the color of the points.
• Info for popups: One or more columns to show in the popups. One or more columns of information to include in the popups or panels.

TIP: To display your points data as a heatmap, you can choose to display your points as a heatmap in the Points settings. Learn more about this in this help doc.

Note that if you have added your Start Time column binding and the points are not displaying, the first thing to verify is whether the data column Input format is set to the date or time format of the actual data.

 

2

Creating a 3D regions map

If you would like to have a regions layer in your map, upload your regions to the Regions tab and make sure your Geometry and Name columns are bound. Regions data is often in a GeoJSON format with Polygons and MultiPolygons features. You can learn more about this here.

TIP: Struggling to find the right regions for your map? Check out our GeoJSON repository where we have sourced, checked, and resized various region files ready for you to download and use in Flourish.

You can also supply the following information in your Regions layer:

• Value: Values to assign to regions. These can then be used for colouring depending if the bound data column is categorical or numerical. 
• Height: A numerical column to extrude your regions by.
• Info for popups: One or more columns of information (text, image URLs, embedded charts etc) to include in custom popups and panels.

TIP: To extrude your regions by a value in your data, you can add a Height column binding and extrude them in the Regions settings. Learn more about this in this help doc. 

 

3

Creating a 3D line map

Just like regions, your lines layer can be supplied in GeoJSON format containing Line and MultiLine features as well. Note that if you upload Polygons or MultiPolygons to the Lines data sheet, they will be rendered as closed lines. 

You can also supply the following information in your Lines layer:

• Series: Used to describe the type of line. This binding lets you distinguish between the types of lines and will allow you to style them differently later on. 

TIP: Unlike regions and points, lines are passive features, meaning that you can't interact with them or supply information in popups. You can learn more about adding lines to your map in this help doc. 

4

Additional settings 

• Initial Viewport: The map will automatically sets its initial zoom and centre to contain all your points and regions. If you want to override this you have the following options: Auto, Centroid, Bounds, and World.

• Inset Map: You can also display an inset map to help the viewer put the current map view of a larger area. By default, if enabled, the inset map shows a globe. But you can set the map to show any region you like by uploading one or more regions (in GeoJSON format) to the Inset Map Regions data sheet. Alternatively, if you just want one or more countries, you can copy the relevant row(s) from Regions data sheet of our Projection map template.

  

   

• Create a story to set initial view in a single-slide story: Hit the Create a story button, once in the Story editor, drag the map into whatever zoom/pan state you like, and it will be automatically saved. If you don't want the navigation bar at the top, choose None from the Navigation menu. You can learn more about single-slide stories here.