I. Overview
1) The flow map, displaying the trajectory from one location to another as well as its corresponding metrics, is often used in the scenarios such as interregional trade, traffic flow, population migration and shopping behavior. The line width of a single flow is decided by the scale or quantity of each movement, conducive to clearly display the geographic distribution of migration activities.
2) The flow map provides eye-catching effects and a Big Data mode, allowing users to effectively display a large volume of data. On the other hand, it lacks the convenience of intuitively showing the value and trend of metrics.
3) For more information, please refer to Map, Map Configuration, Chart Data, Chart Style and Chart Special Effects.
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II. Instructions
1. Insert a Chart
1) Take the floating chart as an example. Click Insert -> Floating Element -> Map, and select Flow Map. Adjust the size and position.
2) Double click the chart and enter Type setup on the right. Click to select the built-in Southeast Asia layer. Choose Midnight for GIS Layer. Set Zoom Level and Center to Automatic.
2. Bind Data
1) Create a new template dataset, click on File dataset, set file type as Excel and select the .xlsx file which you can download below. Check the box of "First row contains column headings" and preview the data.
2) Click on Data. Select the created File1.
The settings for flow map data binding are shown in the screenshot below:
Geographic info: provides two options, namely, Area Name and Lat/Long. Here we choose Lat/Long.
Start Area Name: the area name field to be bound to the starting point of the flow map. Here select Country_from.
End Area Name: the area name field to be bound to the terminal point of the flow map. Here select Country_to.
Start Longitude: the longitude field to be bound to the starting point of the flow map. Here select Long_from.
Start Latitude: the latitude field to be bound to the starting point of the flow map. Here select Lat_from.
End Longitude: the longitude field to be bound to the terminal point of the flow map. Here select Long_to.
End Latitude: the latitude field to be bound to the terminal point of the flow map. Here select Lat_to.
Series Name: choose Enable Field Name, add field Population and set Summary Method to None.
3. Style Setup
Click Style on the right panel to switch to the style setting interface. Despite the various types of charts, most of the style options are universal. Please refer to Chart Style for details.
In the Series part of the flow map, the setting items of Curve, Big Data and Animation are slightly different from the basic style settings.
The Curve panel: used to set up the style of flow curves.
Line With: controls the width of flow lines, the default value is 0.5. For simply showing the flow animation, set the line width as 0 to make the flow line invisible. Here we set the value to 1.
Bending: controls the bendings of the flow lines, the default value is 30.
Opacity: used to set the opacity of flow lines, the default value is 100.
Big Data Mode: it is applied for occasions with a mass volume of data (more than 10,000 entries, for example). When enabled, flow lines will be displayed in the form of big data, with the flow animation not available to use. Click Off to disable the option in this example.
The Animation section: used to set up the style of flow animations.
Animation: switch on/off the animations of flow lines. It is enabled by default.
Period: controls the movement period of data flow, defaulted as 30 seconds. Here we can set it to 10 seconds.
Animation Mode: provides two options, namely, Default and Custom Picture. Here we choose Default.
III. Preview Results
Save and preview the result as shown below.
