Adding a marker layer

Markers show positional coordinates on a map. The markers are customizable shapes that are placed on the map based on the position coordinates (latitudes and longitudes), or based on the geographic information provided in your data that represent zip codes, cities, counties, regions, or countries.

Before you begin

The data must contain geographical or positional information. If the data contains no geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude), markers can be placed automatically in the center of supported administrative areas.

Procedure

Follow the steps in Adding layers.

Tip: You can reuse the settings of an already existing layer instead of adding a completely new layer. See Duplicating a layer for detailed instructions.
From the list, select Marker layer and select the data table to add markers from; either one of your own data tables at the top of the menu, or one of the available geocoding tables.
The marker layer is added to the Map chart layer list, and the layer with its default settings is added to the map chart.
Optionally, move the layer to a new position.
Review properties for the new layer.
You can change properties such as the color, size, shape, rotation, drawing order, line connection, transparency, jittering, or aggregation of markers, as well as adding labels, tooltips, subsets, show/hide items and so on. You can also use Data limiting as in other visualizations.

Positioning markers on the map

You can make changes to the automatic attempt to place geographical elements on the map.

In the visualization properties panel, add the Geocode by card or, in the installed client visualization properties dialog, select Geocoding under Positioning to place markers according to the geographical name in the data. The markers for the geographical names are automatically positioned (by means of the geocoding tables) on the their geographical coordinates on the map. For more information on geocoding, see Geographic location and geocoding.

If the first automatic geocoding fails, you can click Auto-match under Geocode by. With this functionality, Spotfire makes an attempt to classify the content of the columns selected on the axis (Marker by/Geocode by), in search for geographic information. If any of the columns are successfully classified, then an automatic geocoding is performed which downloads geocoding tables and sets up the column matches.

It is also possible to add geocoding tables manually. Under Geocoding hierarchy, click Add geocoding tables and add a geocoding hierarchy to use from the list, or by clicking the plus sign and browsing for a data file locally, or in the library.

If you add geocoding tables manually, you might need to edit column matches as well. Click View matches and then Edit column matches to open a dialog where you can add a new match (installed client only).
To place markers using columns in your data that contain coordinates (longitude/latitude values), rather than positioning using geocoding, you can remove the Geocode by card and use X or longitude and Y or latitude options to select columns. In the installed client, first select Coordinate columns on the Positioning page.

Marker layer example

This map chart visualization shows Sweden, using two data tables: Sweden counties and Sweden county capitals. The data includes added census information from 2015, and it has a calculated column indicating cities with populations over 200,000. This map chart shows Sweden with a nearly-transparent feature layer, showing county boundary lines, and a marker layer with the following properties:

Title if the marker layer is set to Sweden county capitals.
In Appearance, Transparency is set to 0%.
Data is set to Sweden county capitals.
The positioning is set to be based on coordinates, with coordinate columns selected under X or longitude and Y or latitude.
Shape is set to Shape by column values, and if the population is larger than 200,000 their shapes are filled circles (three cities; Stockholm, Malmö, and Göteborg meet this condition), and for all other county capitals the shapes are filled squares. (Three cities, Stockholm, Malmö, and Göteborg meet this condition)
Legend is set to be hidden.
Color by: Larger than 200000 (an added calculated column), where the coloring uses two colors, so smaller cities and towns are shown in blue, and the larger cities are shown in red.
Size by is set to Sum(Population 2015). Also, the overall marker size slightly enlarged (under Appearance). (Stockholm's marker is significantly larger but the smallest markers are still clearly visible.)
Drawing order is not set because the map has no overlapping markers.
Jittering is not set because the map has no overlapping markers.
Line connection is not set.
Labels is set to show the names of all county capitals.