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This article only applies to movement data

This article is only relevant when working with movement data, not when working with time series data.

You can read more about the differences between the two in this article.

Working with gridded data, trajectory data and realtime data

By default, your records are shown in a gridded way. When zoomed out, the grid cells denote larger areas on the map ( e.g., 1km x 1km), when zoomed in the data points are aggregated in smaller cells (e.g., 20m x 20m). This gridded data representation has many benefits:

  • It allows quick aggregation by counting the number of records in a cell

  • It allows multi-resolution representations

  • It shows the data as is, without assuming points are connected to one another

  • Scales easily to multiple billions of records

screenshot of the spatial map when using gridded data representation
Figure 1. Visualizing data using the gridded data representation

As location records of the same asset are related to one another, they can be connected to form trajectory lines.

screenshot of the spatial map when using trajectories data representation
Figure 2. Visualizing data using the trajectories data representation

You can switch between gridded data handling and trajectories data handling using the selection input in the Layers panel.

screenshot of the data representation chooser
Figure 3. Select the desired data representation in the Layers panel. Only available when there are multiple data representations available for the data set.

You can also choose to show the position at the end of the time interval on top of the trajectory by activating the icon option in the Layers panel.

screenshot of a trajectory with a ship
Figure 4. Trajectory of a ship where the position of the ship is represented by the ship icon

When selecting Realtime, each asset is shown at its last reported location.

screenshot of the spatial map when using realtime data representation
Figure 5. Visualizing data using the realtime data representation

You can change the icon representing the position in the Layers panel for both the trajectories and realtime data representation.

screenshot of the layers panel with the icon option highlighted
Figure 6. Change the position icon in the Layers panel

Some icons require that the data contains special properties like a heading or asset dimensions to be present in the data. When missing (or missing for a specific asset), the platform will fall back to the circle icon. See the Data properties file syntax article for more details on how to include those properties.

Data will automatically update

When pushing/or uploading new data the map (and timeline and attribute) views are automatically updated.

This allows you to have an always up-to-date view, for example, when looking at real-time data.