Creating heat, clusters 3D column, traffic and reference layers

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A deep-dive into creating and using Azure Map visuals in Power BI Part four of a four-part series of blogs
The Azure map visual has been an official part of Power BI now for nearly a year, and the initial teething problems have now been ironed out. This blog shows how to use the Azure maps visual, and explains why you don't now need to use any of the other map visuals in Power BI. Why you should use the Azure maps for your maps - and how to do so Creating Azure Maps in Power BI Working with and formatting Azure maps Creating heat, clusters 3D column, traffic and reference layers (this blog)

A deep-dive into creating and using Azure Map visuals in Power BI

Part four of a four-part series of blogs

The Azure map visual has been an official part of Power BI now for nearly a year, and the initial teething problems have now been ironed out. This blog shows how to use the Azure maps visual, and explains why you don't now need to use any of the other map visuals in Power BI.

Why you should use the Azure maps for your maps - and how to do so
Creating Azure Maps in Power BI
Working with and formatting Azure maps
Creating heat, clusters 3D column, traffic and reference layers (this blog)

Posted by Andy Brown on 04 March 2024

In this blog

Heat maps
Cluster maps
3D column layers
Traffic Layers
Reference layers

The final blog in the series shows some of the layers that you can add to maps.

Heat maps

Heat maps show where data is concentrated:

A heat map showing that sales are concentrated (astonishingly) in urban areas.

This heat map uses these fields:

The heat map shows where most sales occur.

Here are the main formatting settings (note that you need to turn a Heat map on to see these):

The heat map will disappear when you zoom out below level 4 or zoom in above level 15.

Azure maps consist of layers, so it may be a good idea to turn any bubble map layer off if you're also displaying a heat map layer.

Cluster maps

Cluster maps show how much data you have in any given area, without clutter:

As you zoom in the distribution of the number of shopping centres in this map gets ever clearer.

Here are the fields for the map above:

The fields used for the above map (pretty standard for a bubble map, showing total quantity sold for each shopping centre).

And here are the main formatting settings:

The Cluster size gives the size of each circle, while the other properties show how each circle will be formatted.

3D column layers

These always look impressive!

Two examples of 3D column layers.

Here are the settings for the right-hand chart above:

This chart also has conditional formatting applied, but these settings aren't shown above.

Traffic Layers

If you want to see current road conditions, show a traffic layer:

It looks like it’ll be a difficult journey home from the office!

Here are the settings for this layer:

If you’re showing incidents you can click on any of them to show more details, as we’ve done here. Roadworks - yuk!

Reference layers

It’s often useful to show information on the background of a map:

Two examples of references layers on a map

The hardest bit about creating a reference layer is finding a JSON or other file to use. Wise Owl have had success with Googling search phrases of the format Download XXX KML file.

Reference layers support file formats including the following:

Type of file	Extension
GeoJSON	.json or .geojson
WKT (Well-Known Text)	.wkt
KML (Keyhole Markup Language)	.kml

Once you’ve got a map file using one of the above formats, setting it as a reference layer is trivial!

Click on this icon and choose the file that contains your mapping data (I couldn't get JSON files to work (but succeeded with KML files).

And that's the end of my deep dive into the impressive Azure map visual!

Parts of this blog
Why you should use the Azure maps for your maps - and how to do so Creating Azure Maps in Power BI Working with and formatting Azure maps Creating heat, clusters 3D column, traffic and reference layers (this blog)

Some other pages relevant to the above blogs include:

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