Creating an interactive map of data - frequency and date of visits

May 25, 2017 7:42 AM

I have to create a map showing the Europe, with visits to locations shown, and the dates of the visits. The locations are mostly in the UK, and some places have been visited more than once. Can anyone recommend any software or resources (preferably free) to put this together?

Initially it's for sharing privately, but it might at some point be published online. It would be useful to be able to interrogate the data, and provide a detailed list of locations visited in each city attached to the dates, but this is not essential. Any thoughts much appreciated!

posted by coupedloups to Technology (9 answers total)

Look into Google Fusion Tables.

You can create a spreadsheet with location and additional information, and it'll map it for you.
posted by entropone at 7:51 AM on May 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Tableau Public is an option.
(Caveat: I work at Tableau)
posted by ShooBoo at 8:16 AM on May 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

I have used Google MyMaps in the past to create a map that showed projects at various locations. However, I could never figure out the best way to display multiple projects at the same location. Google Maps superimposes pins that have the exact same location. My workaround was to give projects with the same location slightly different coordinates to spread the pins out a bit.

I'm not sure how MyMaps differs from Fusion Tables mentioned above, but they are different.
posted by houseofleaves at 10:14 AM on May 25, 2017

I would also say Tableau Public but any map you create will be, by default, public. Same with Arc GIS online. You can get around this somewhat by making the tags cryptic but someone could always find it anyway.

How are your programming skills?
posted by Young Kullervo at 10:30 AM on May 25, 2017

Best answer: Seconding Fusion Tables. It's pretty simple to use (easier than Tableau) and you can export the final map as a KML file, which can then be opened locally with Google Earth or uploaded and shared through Google Maps.
posted by yeahlikethat at 12:44 PM on May 25, 2017

You can do this in R, but I wouldn't recommend it as the best option unless you already know R. You can have it drop pins that show people how many visits and on which dates when they click on an icon at each visited location. You can either host the map on your own site, or just share the code and have people run it locally.
posted by snaw at 2:47 PM on May 25, 2017

You could check out CartoDB which focuses on location data.
posted by czytm at 6:26 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

if these are personal trips that you have taken previously. Google maps does that already. If you have location turned on your android phone, it already makes a history of your visits to places. In google maps these are under timeline.

You can take these location from google.com/takeout as JSON or KML file.
posted by radsqd at 8:17 AM on May 26, 2017

Response by poster: Thanks for the replies, I will check out Fusion Tables and Tableau Public. It's not personal trips, otherwise I would use my Google data.
posted by coupedloups at 2:17 PM on May 26, 2017