Welcome to another MapReveal™ Software Community Post!
In today's post, I will show you how you can create Thematic maps on MapReveal™ Software. Thematic maps serve as visual representations of location-based attributes. These maps help gain a deeper understanding of the relationships between various features and reveal spatial patterns within the data. Depending on the data type and the kind of spatial relationships that you want to explore, there are many different types of thematic maps that you could create, which may include choropleth maps, heatmaps, point clusters, proportional symbol maps, etc.
For this example, I have a dataset of the US Counties with the attributes as shown in the snapshot below. My goal here is to create a themed map using the column 'Incident_Count', which represents the count of Wildfire incidents across the counties.
Once the data is loaded in the Layer panel, you can click on the Layer to expand the Styling Panel. Under Styling Types, a dropdown menu has been provided which allows you to select the styling type that you want to apply to the layer. This will have 'Fixed' Styling applied by default.
Once you choose Graduated Styling, you will notice that some additional parameters have appeared in the Styling Panel.
- Attribute – You can choose the Attribute of interest from the dropdown provided. Only those field(s) with numerical values will be available to choose from.
- Method – You can choose the data classification method from the dropdown provided. Depending on the distribution of the data and the information that you want to convey through the map, you can choose one of the methods. For e.g., Quantile distribution will create classes such that there are equal number of features in each class, while the inter-class variance might be low. On the other hand, the Natural Breaks (Jenks) algorithm creates classes based on the natural groupings within the data. It will minimize the within-class variance and maximize the inter-class differences.
- Classes – You can specify the number of classes to create using the slider.
- Color – You can specify the 1st color and the 2nd color based on the desired color ramp and the features within the respective classes will be progressively colored based on your input.
You will then observe that the classes have been created based on your input in the above parameters.
You can further use the edit button to customize the color assigned to a class or change the minimum/maximum value of a class and the corresponding values of the preceding/succeeding class will adjust automatically. You can also create additional classes by using the '+' button.
The standard Label Feature and Icon & Text Styles are also available to customize the map further.
Once published, this is how the map appears.
On the legend, you will notice that the dropdown next to the Layer can be used to expand the classes that you have created. The visibility of the individual classes can be toggled using the show/hide icon next to each class and clicking on the class will pan and zoom the map into the respective class extent.
I hope you found this useful. I'll write a separate article on the Data Classification methods available under Graduated Styling and discuss which method is more effective depending on the data type, its distribution, and the information that you want to convey through your map. Do share your feedback/questions in the comments section.
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Anurag Hazarika
Product Manager
Precisely | Trust in Data
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