If you’ve played around with MapBox in Power BI – you’ll know that it has loads of great features to create really rich and beautiful maps! One feature I love is the ability to ‘drill down’ to dynamically uncover different layers of your spatial data hierarchy, just in the same way that you can drill down on a standard column chart or matrix in Power BI.

Why Drill Down on a Map?

1. See the big picture: Using drill down, we can visualize the data set at the ‘big picture’ scale, and then explore finer details for areas of interest (just think of the classic spatial hierarchy of Country -> State -> City -> Suburb)
2. Save on real estate: We can also display multiple datasets at different levels in the same map – which goes a long way to conserving your precious report page real estate by reducing the number of visuals in your report!  
3. Performance: Following on from above, less visuals almost always equates to better report performance! And this is especially true when using MapBox, which is at the slower end of the Power BI performance scale at the best of times – so using drill down to reduce the number of maps combined with filtering your datasets goes a long way to speeding up your reports!

Create a Drill Down Map in MapBox

Setting up a drill down map in MapBox is pretty simple once you get the hang of configuring Choropleth maps, and in this video blog I walk through the key steps:

1. Create a MapBox ‘Choropleth’ map (check out the video on MapBox 101 if you’re new to MapBox, or need a refresher on creating Choropleth maps).
2. Add hierarchy layers to the  ‘location’ MapBox field well
3. Enter the vector layer properties from the MapBox Studio for the additional map levels

In my example, I create a drill down map of priority Catchments and Rivers across Victoria using ‘synthetic’ data, which I created to visualize the nutrient concentration over time (for demonstration purposes only!).

Instructions

Locate the RIVERNAME field and Drag & Drop it into the second position in the Location field well under BASIN_NO.

Now navigate to the Format area and select the Choropleth section again. Increase the Number of levels to 2, and Select the Custom Tileset in the Data Level 2 section.

After you set the above you need to jump out of the Power BI Desktop and head over to the mapbox studio. Here you would take the second layer of the map that you created by choosing another tileset. (For details on how to do that watch the Mapbox 101 tutorial.)

1. Copy the Tileset ID from Mapbox and insert that value into the PBI Desktop Vector Tile Url Level 2 property still under the Choropleth section.
2. Copy the layer name from Mapbox and Paste into the Source Layer Name Level 2 property.
3. Copy the field you want from the attribute list in Mapbox and Paste into the Vector Property Level 2.

Mapbox Drill Down Results

We now have the ability to select our map area and drill down into the second layer. In our example, the rivers are now shown under each catchment.

If you’re keen to learn how to create really cool customized maps for your Power BI reports, then make sure to check out the other blogs in this 4-part MapBox series, where we provide an introductory MapBox 101, explore how to create 3D maps, and how to design your own styles!

And if you want to learn how you can create really beautiful and engaging Power BI reports, get in touch with one of the DiscoverEI team to register for our brand-new online training courses:

• Power BI Designer Masterclass
• Power BI for the Environmental Industry
• Power BI for the Water Industry

Take a look here for more details (https://www.discoverei.com/training)

If you like the content from PowerBI.Tips please follow us on all the social outlets. Stay up to date on all the latest features and free tutorials.  Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.  Or follow us on the social channels, Twitter and LinkedIn where we will post all the announcements for new tutorials and content.

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If you’ve played around with MapBox in Power BI – you’ll know that it has loads of great features to create really rich and beautiful maps! And one of my favorite ways to get a new client excited about Power BI is to create an awesome 3D map of their city. Now, I know that 3D features get a bit of a bad wrap in traditional data viz circles (don’t even think about creating a 3D pie chart!!!), so why then are 3D maps different?

Why use 3D maps?

1. Greater context: We see our world in 3D, so when we transform a flat 2D map of our cities or mountains into a 3D map, it immediately creates greater connection and a sense of perspective.
2. Another dimension: 3D maps don’t just have to be based on ‘relative’ heights, you can use the 3D effect to add a new dimension to your visualisation, such as population per town, to communicate key insights at a glance.  
3. They just look really fancy: Sometimes half our battle as data analysts revolves around getting people within our (or our clients) organisations engaged and connected to their data. Creating 3D maps can go a long way to get that ‘wow’ factor which gets people excited and interested in the data!  

Get started with MapBox

There are a couple of tricks to getting the 3D features working in MapBox, so in this video blog I walk through the key steps to help you create your own 3D maps using MapBox:

1. Create a MapBox ‘Choropleth’ map (check out the video on MapBox 101 if you’re new to MapBox, or need a refresher on creating Choropleth maps).
2. Add height in the MapBox field pane
3. Adjust Extrusion Height, Pitch and Properties

In my example, I create a 3D map of buildings across Melbourne as part of a ‘Green Roof’ assessment tool to help optimize the benefits of blue-green infrastructure across Melbourne. Note that I have anonymized this  data and the calculations so that I can share it with the Power BI community (for demonstration purposes only!).

Instructions

Create a data set that includes the height of the objects, in this case the height of buildings.

Drag the Height column from your data set into the Size field well.

Click on the Format section of the visual and select the Choropleth toggle.

Scroll till you find the Extrusion Height. You will likely need to Adjust the value to a lower value. In our case, we take it from 500 to 5. The Extrusion Height is a multiplier of the Height value from our data set.

Now, we can look one option below and we see Extrusion Pitch. We are going to Adjust this from 0 to 30. This will provide an angled view of the map which provides a clearer picture of the dimensions.

Adjust MapBox Properties

Under the Viz Settings we want to Select the Map Style and change it to Satellite

Add Color to the different suburbs. Select the Data Colors header and Click to open up the options. Now you can Set the colors of the different areas to visually separate them.

If you’re keen to learn how to create really cool customized maps for your Power BI reports, then make sure to check out the other blogs in this 4-part MapBox series, where we provide an introductory MapBox 101, explore how to create multi-layer drill down maps, and how to design your own styles!

And if you want to learn how you can create really beautiful and engaging Power BI reports, get in touch with one of the DiscoverEI team to register for our brand-new online training courses:

• Power BI Designer Masterclass
• Power BI for the Environmental Industry
• Power BI for the Water Industry

Take a look here for more details (https://www.discoverei.com/training)

If you like the content from PowerBI.Tips please follow us on all the social outlets. Stay up to date on all the latest features and free tutorials.  Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.  Or follow us on the social channels, Twitter and LinkedIn where we will post all the announcements for new tutorials and content.

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Maps are a fantastic way to communicate spatial data – and lucky for us Power BI has loads of awesome mapping visuals to choose from. However, the MapBox Custom Visual is definitely my favorite!

This Tutorial will walk you through the basics of getting started with MapBox.

Why do I love MapBox?

1. It’s versatile: You can create pretty much any type of map you’d like, whether it be Circle, Heatmaps, Clusters, Chloropleths, Rasters…there’s plenty of options to chose from all in the one visual.
2. Ability to customise: Using the MapBox Studio, you can design and host your own spatial datasets, create custom base maps, and visualise them in Power BI.
3. But best of all… It’s free: Unlike the ArcGIS custom visual, where to unlock most of the cool features you need a paid ArcGIS online licence, you have access to all of MapBox’s amazing features with their free account.

MapBox is Feature Rich

With so many features available in MapBox, I know that I was pretty overwhelmed when I was first getting started. So, in this video blog I walk through the key steps to help you get started on your MapBox journey, including how to:

1. Add the MapBox custom visual into Power BI
2. Create a MapBox account and access token
3. Create a simple circle map
4. Upload custom ‘tilesets’ to the MapBox Studio
5. Create a custom ‘Chloropleth’ map (just a fancy name for an area map…)

In my example, I create both a circle and chloropleth map using ‘synthetic data’ which I created to visualise community satisfaction scores for priority waterways across Melbourne (my hometown!).

Instructions

Click on the ellipsis in the Visualizations window and Select the option Import from AppSource in the drop down menu.

Enter in the search window the words mapbox. Click on the Search Glass icon. Then Click on the Add button next to the Mapbox Visual.

Visit the website mapbox.com and Sign In. If you don’t already have an account you will need to create one. An account can be created here.

Once you login you can see the public access token on the main login screen. To copy the token to your clip board, Click on the Clipboard in the Default public token window toward the bottom of the screen.

Take the copied token and place it in the mapbox visual inside the Properties pane, under the Viz Settings for the field labeled Access Token.

Now, add fields from your data model into the map visual to create a map.

Return to your account within mapbox.com. Click on your account icon, then Click on the Studio option in the drop down menu.

Click on the option on the main header bar labeled Tilesets.

Click on the button labeled New Tileset.

Next, upload your shape file into mapbox by clicking Select a file.

You will need three pieces of data to add the Chloropleth map.

• You need the Vector Tile Url Level 1 or the Tileset ID from mapbox.com. Obtain this by clicking on one of the tilesets in mapbox.com and copying the Tileset ID by clicking on the clipboard icon in the Tileset ID window. Paste this value into the field labeled Vector Tile Url Level 1. Note: The final URL needs to contain the mapbox:// beginning URL. Thus, your final URL should look similar to the following mapbox://mapbox.mapbox-terrain-v2

• You will need the layer you will be visualizing. This is found under the Tileset Layer Details. Copy the name of the Layer you will use in your mapbox visual. Paste this property into the Source Layer Name Level 1 input box.

• Finally, add the data layer of the Tileset into the Vector Property Level 1. This must be a column of data that resides inside your Power BI data model. In the video example our column name was POSTCODE. This column was also added to the Location field settings of the mapbox visual.

With these settings in place we can now see a Cloropleth map of our data. Continue styling the visual to suit your needs.

If you’re keen to learn how to create really cool customized maps for your Power BI reports, then make sure to check out the other video blogs in this 4-part MapBox series. Additional videos will cover how to create 3-D maps, multi-layer drill downs, and design your own styles!

And if you want to learn how you can create really beautiful and engaging Power BI reports, get in touch with one of the DiscoverEI team to register for our brand-new online training courses:

• Power BI Designer Masterclass
• Power BI for the Environmental Industry
• Power BI for the Water Industry

Take a look here for more details (https://www.discoverei.com/training)

If you like the content from PowerBI.Tips please follow us on all the social outlets. Stay up to date on all the latest features and free tutorials.  Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.  Or follow us on the social channels, Twitter and LinkedIn where we will post all the announcements for new tutorials and content.

Introducing our PowerBI.tips SWAG store. Check out all the fun PowerBI.tips clothing and products:

Check out the new Merch!