Showing directions using marker rotation in a map chart

Some marker shapes, for example arrows, indicate directions. If you, in a map chart marker layer, rotate such markers, you can visualize directions of motions. What you need is a column that contains values that can be interpreted as degrees.

The rotation of the markers can be made clockwise or counter-clockwise. A full rotation is 360 degrees, and a value of 361 is interpreted as 1 degree.

Prerequisites

A map chart with a marker layer has been created.

Procedure

  1. Right-click the map chart, and select Properties in the opened menu.
    The Properties popover is displayed with a side panel showing the current layers in the map chart.
  2. If the popover does not display the properties for the marker layer of interest, select the marker layer in the side panel.
    The Properties popover for the selected marker layer is displayed.
  3. In the popover, select Shape.
    The Shape section is displayed.
  4. Select Fixed shape, and in the shape palette, click a marker suitable for showing direction.
  5. In the popover, select Rotation.
    The Rotation section is displayed.
  6. Select the column and, if applicable, which type of aggregated value to use for defining how many degrees the markers should be rotated.
  7. Select rotation direction; Clockwise or Counter-clockwise.

Result

The markers in the marker layer are rotated to indicate different directions.

Map chart marker layer showing wind direction

The data table below lists wind speed and wind direction, for a number of locations. The wind directions are expressed in degrees.



The markers in the marker layer below are used to visualize the direction of the wind at each location (and the marker sizes reflect the wind speed).


Rotated markers

If the selected marker shape is Arrow pointing upwards, then, a 90 degree clockwise rotation of this marker shape will be displayed as Arrow pointing to the right. If you instead select Arrow pointing to the right as the marker shape to use, a 90 degree clockwise rotation would be displayed as .

How many degrees each marker should be rotated is defined by the 'Direction in degrees' data column. The rotation direction in this example is set to clockwise.