The Map data region is a professional edition feature that shows your business data against a geographical background. You can create different types of map, depending on the type of information you want to communicate in your report.
Maps consist of a title, a viewport for specifying the center point and scale, legend for interpreting data, distance scale to represent real world distance, and color scale for representing the meaning of colors used in maps. Lets us learn these in detail in the next section.
Note:
Map Title describes the theme or subject of the map. The purpose of map title is to tell the viewer of what he is looking at. You can add multiple titles to the Map using the MapTitleDesigner Collection Editor. For more information, see Add a Title to the Map tutorial.
Viewport refers to the area on the map where data is displayed against a geographical background. It specifies the coordinates, projection system, parallels and meridians, center point, and scale of the map. In other words, it is a map element that actually displays geographical data and occupies most area of the map control depending on the location and dock position of other map elements. By default, color scale and distance scale appear inside the viewport, and the map legend appears outside the viewport. For information on customizing the viewport, see Modify the Appearance of the Viewport tutorial.
The Map Viewport dialog lets you set properties with the following pages.
A legend on a map provides valuable information to users for interpreting the map data visualization rules such as color, size, and marker type differences for map elements on a layer. By default, a single Legend item already exists in the legends collection which can be used by all layers to display items. You can also create additional legends to use them individually with layers that have associated rules to display items in the legend. Legends are added in the LegendDesigner Collection Editor. For more information, see Add a Legend to the Map tutorial.
A distance scale helps a user to understand the scale of the map. Distance on a map is not the same as the actual real-world distance, so a distance scale shows that a certain distance on the map equals a certain distance in a real-world. In distance scale, the distance is displayed in both miles and kilometers. The scale range and values are automatically calculated using the viewport boundaries, projection type, and zoom level. For more information, see Set the Distance Scale on a Map tutorial.
The Map Distance Scale dialog lets you set properties with the following pages.
A color scale helps a user to understand the range of colors that are used for data visualization on a layer. A map has just one color scale and multiple layers can provide data for it. For information, see Set the Color Scale on a Map tutorial.
The Map Color Scale dialog lets you set properties with the following pages.
By clicking on the Map control, you can set its properties in the Properties panel.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| AccessibleDescription | Enter the alternative description of the control for use by accessibility client application. The property on exporting the report adds the ‘alternative text’ in PDF and ‘alt’ attribute in HTML. |
| AntiAliasing | Select the anti-aliasing type from All, None, Text, or Graphic. |
| BorderColor | Choose a color for the border from the Color Picker. |
| BorderStyle | Select a style for the border. |
| BorderWidth | Enter a value or expression to set the width of the border. |
| Calander | Select the type of calendar you want to use. |
| ColorScale | Specify the range of colors that are used for data visualization on a layer. See the Color Scale section for details. |
| DistanceScale | Specify a certain distance on the map that equals a certain distance in the real-world. See the Distance Scale section for details. |
| Language | Choose the language of the map. |
| Layers | Specify the layers (Polygon layer, Point layer, Line layer, Tile layer) used to display data on the map. See the Map Layers section for details. |
| Legends | Specify the map data visualization rules, such as color, size, and marker type differences, for map elements on a layer. See the Legends section for details. |
| MaximumSpatialElementCount | Specify the maximum number of spatial elements that are allowed in the Map. By default, the value is set to 20000. |
| MiximumTotalPointCount | Specify the maximum total number of map points in all spatial elements that are allowed in the Map. |
| NumeralLanguage | Choose the numeral language. |
| NumeralVariant | Choose numeral variant from 1-7. |
| PageBreak | Set the Page Break. |
| ShadowIntensity | Entre a value or expression to specify the intensity of the shadow throughout the map. By default, the value is set to 25. |
| Size | Set the Width and Height of the map. |
| TextAntiAliasingQuality | Select the text anti- aliasing quality to High, Normal, or SystemDeafult. |
| TileLanguage | Choose the primary language of the map tiles. |
| Titles | Specify the theme or subject of the map. See the Title section for details. |
| ViewPort | Specify the coordinates, projection system, parallels and meridians, center point, and scale of the map. See the Viewport section for details. |
You can set the Map properties in the Map dialog. To open it, with the Map selected on the report, under the Properties panel, click the Property dialog link.
In the Select a Map Template wizard that appears, select a map template from the following options:
For more information on adding a map, see tutorial on Map Data Region in Reports.
The Map data region uses two types of data - spatial data and analytical data.
Spatial data is a set of coordinates that defines a map element. Each map layer must have spatial data of one of the following types - a polygon, a line, or a point.
Spatial data can be either embedded in a map or can be linked to a map layer. The only difference between the two is that while having the spatial data embedded in a map, there is no separate file to locate or to keep track of when you move the report between projects or machines.
Embedded Spatial Data:
Embedded spatial data can refer to the following:
External Spatial Data:
External spatial data can refer to the following:
Analytical data is the data that you want to visualize on the map, for example, tourist attractions in a city or product sales by region. For analytical data, you can associate it with map elements by indicating match fields in the Match box of the Map Layer Data Properties dialog. You can use one or more fields in the Match box of the Map Layer Data Properties dialog; for each spatial data field you must indicate a unique analytical data field. This data is optional.
You can get analytical data from the following types of data sources.
See Add Data to a Map tutorial.
A map is a collection of layers that display data on the map control.
A map can have one or more layers. You can load these layers on top of each other to create a more detailed map. For example, a polygon layer can represent the borders of a country, a line can represent transportation routes, a point can represent the locations and a tile can add a virtual earth background on the map. See Use Map Layers for more information.
Map layer element appearance:
The Map layer Data dialog is used to set up spatial and analytical data for the map control. For more information on spatial and analytical data, see Add Data to a Map.
Rules apply properties to a layer when the layer has map elements that have a relationship to analytical data. For example, the color rule varies map element color based on color palette, color range, custom colors, and further specify the distribution option to control display values.
The type of rule depends on the layer type. For example, use point size rules to vary bubble size based on population.
See Use Color Rule, Marker Rule, and Size Rule for more information.
