Instant Maps with kepler.gl

I like things that are native in my browser and allow me to just drag and drop things (hence my undying love of Voyant). Now, there’s a voyant-style solution to making maps and visualizing spatial data: kepler.gl. From the site:

Showing geospatial data in a single web interface, kepler.gl helps users quickly validate ideas and glean insights from these visualizations. Using kepler.gl, a user can drag and drop a CSV or GeoJSON file into the browser, visualize it with different map layers, explore it by filtering and aggregating it, and eventually export the final visualization as a static map or an animated video. Instead of spanning multiple browsers and consuming weeks of work at a time, the entire trial and error process occurs place in one user interface and can take as little as 10 minutes!

I mean…Who doesn’t want to make maps and visualize data in as little as 10 minutes! But more importantly, it makes powerful visualization methods to students and academics who might not otherwise have access:

We’ve also seen academics use the software, such as architecture student Diego Crescêncio from Estácio de Sá in Rio De Janeiro. For his research, Diego works with open crime data in kepler.gl to better understand the built environment for urban design research. He’s been using 2D and 3D visualizations of data pertaining to city-wide crime rates to understand how urban design can improve safety within favelas. According to Diego, urbanists in Brazil rarely use geo-analytics software. Since adopting kepler.gl, Diego, his professors, and other collaborators on the UNIGIS network have been able to achieve powerful and quick data analysis for this project.

As always, the visualization is only as good as the data you upload, but given the wide availability of open data, this would be a great tool to get students (and your research) started with maps and visualization.

How would you use kepler.gl?

[Photo by delfi de la Rua on Unsplash]