Maps have always been one of the most important visualisation types. Joseph Minard's map from 1869 of Napoleon's invasion into Russia is considered to be one of the first infographics in history. This amazing piece of geospatial analysis shows no less than 6 powerful elements of information associated with the invasion. (Direction, Height, Temperature, Date, Num of soldiers all this on a map)
QBeeQ Maps
QBeeQ is the leading map provider to the Sisense ecosystem, offering various different map technologies with more than 10 different visualisation layers which add a wide range of advanced functionalities, from monitoring trends to deep investigation. We’ll review our offerings in this article and explain the differences between them, emphasising on which should be used when.
Our available maps are
The Mapbox plugin (formerly known as the Choropleth map) - this powerful map has 3 different layers (and growing!) and a wide range of functionality features designed to dive deep into any geospatial analyses
The Deck.gl plugin - This map has 8 different layers (and growing!!!) and is designed to monitor big data trends over long periods of time
The Google Maps plugin - is designed for organisations that are used to Google map features and can integrate any feature out there
The Floor Map plugin - This plugin allows you to draw out a physical floor plan on a Sisense widget and plot data on top for powerful Geospatial intelligence needs
Amcharts Map with Pie charts
Key Factors in determining the right mapping tool for your project
We’ll start with defining the ways maps are used in advanced analytics;
High resolution investigation of ongoing daily operations
Monitor trends of mass occurrences over time
Jaw dropping visuals designed to give that “WOW” effect to any dashboard or data app
At QBeeQ, we see these as the 3 points of the geospatial analytics scope and design our products accordingly. All this with stunning visuals.
The Mapbox Plugin
High resolution investigation of ongoing daily operations such as fulfillment and logistics, real estate coverage or field engineer distribution is designed to monitor the current state of an environment in order to reach immediate insights and make immediate decisions in the actual field.
For this we created the powerful Mapbox plugin which combines the needs of both worlds in 1 powerful product. This plugin comes with several powerful layers that are not only packed with a wide range of high end features, but also look amazing (not to be underestimated in advanced analytics).
The Mapbox plugin allows one to combine a territorial layer with a point layer. Both layers’ design can be fully controlled and defined by conditional formatting, both come with powerful tooltips which allow to plot more information than is just shown, can be filtered upon, drilled to other dashboards, filterable by use of a lasso selector and much more. In addition, a measure switcher allows the consumers of the Mapbox plugin to toggle between various KPIs of either the territories or the points, effectively achieving multiple maps in a single view.
The points can be broken down by colour or by value, meaning that one can define the colour by location type (store type, location category) or by a KPI by use of conditional formatting. The size of the points too can be defined by another value giving this powerful layer another aspect of data investigation.
We recently introduced the cluster layer to the Mapbox plugin which plots a ring pie chart on top of the cluster, giving the viewer a high level perspective into the cluster under investigation.
The Deck.gl Map plugin
The Deck.gl Map is an extremely powerful Big Data trend analytics tool which was originally developed by the Uber data engineering teams. You know that when Uber needs to analyse their own data, that means VERY BIG data. The Deck.gl library comes with dozens of extremely powerful and beautified geospatial layers for a wide range of needs. Our Deck.gl plugin comes packed with no less than 8 of these, allowing viewers to combine up to 2 different layers on the fly.
From 3D Hexbin H3 hexagons to 3D polygon territories that jump out of the screen (not really), to a powerful arc layer and a beautified heatmap, this is the number one tool for trend analysis of large geo datasets with Sisense.
All layers can be fully designed with no code required whatsoever, everything is at the hands of the designers.
The H3 Hexbin maps can be thought of as 3D heat maps which not show only concentration of events but can add another layer of info by use of the height of the hexagon.
The Arc layer can show truck routes or plane flights, for fulfillment, logistics, national spread and trips analytics, or even allocation of a given factory to another, population migration trends and more.
The powerful heatmap can be combined with the point layer to offer more than a traditional heatmap capabilities, rather transforming it into an interactive heatmap which can be clicked and filtered to areas with multiple points using the lasso selector.
The polygon layer can be shown in standard 2D mode but by a click of a button can be transformed into a powerful 3D mode which here too adds another layer of information presented by the height of the territories.
The Goole Map Plugin
The Google Map plugin allows standard clustering of points on top of any Google Map layout. When zooming into each cluster, the traditional red pinpoints of the cluster appear,m and each is allocated a powerful tooltip which shows much more information, as well as enabling the jump-to-dashboard from that pinpoint. The great thing about the Google map plugin is that it can accept any other google maps features out there, just let us know what your specific needs are and we’ll implement it for you!
The Floor Map plugin
The powerful QBeeQ Floor Plan Map plugin allows you to visually draw out a physical floor plan on a Sisense widget and plot data on top. This tool allows you to display meaningful insights related to physical floor plan layouts of indoor or outdoor locations. The data can be conditionally formatted to match your data needs using the native Sisense colour mechanisms. This brings your floor plan management and analytics capabilities light years ahead; from static blueprint reports to dynamic insight monitoring of many measures at once.
Jaw Dropping Maps
Finally, we have a few simplified mapping options which focus more on visual appeal rather than functionality. From an interactive Map with Pie charts to the US Honeycomb tile map, these beautified maps are designed to give the WOW effect in any powerful Sisense dashboard.
In conclusion, there are a few ways to use maps for advanced geospatial analytics; from monitoring trends of large data sets over time, to daily operational needs which require diving deeper into high res data in order to achieve immediate insights. QBeeQ offers a wide range of advanced mapping tools for Sisense on several leading mapping technologies available today.
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Want to test drive our new plugins for free? Get the QBeeQ Maps PowerUp