Azure Map in Power BI with Layers: Part Three

In the last two posts, I have explained how to access Azure Map and create bubble charts and Bar charts with other available settings.

check the first Post from here and the second one from here.

In this blog, I am going to talk about different layers we can have on top of the map.

In this part, we are going to check the

Reference layer and Traffic Layer

Refrence Layer

According to the Microsoft website Reference layer in Power BI is

The reference layer feature lets a secondary spatial dataset be uploaded to the visual and overlaid on the map to provide additional context.

The file should be in a GeoJSON format. that thas the .json or .geojson extension.

GeoJSON File

For this blog, I am going to use a shape map about the New Zealand region from Here. This file has been using in a blog about Shape maps written by Reza.

I could not use this one as it is a shapefile, I need to convert it into GeoJSON format.

Here my the shapefile I used and download from Koordinates.com

The result is a zip file, you can download from below

There is a website name “mygeodata.cloud/conversion” that converts shapefile format to GeoJSON or any layers to different types of layers ( like KML, GML, JSON, Topojson and so forth)

you need to upload the whole Zip file from Koordinate.com. as below

In the end, it gives you a GeoJSON, just remember to check the Merge output files. (Your conversions are limited to the volume of 5.0 MB or to the number of 3 datasets for this website)

After converting to GeoJSON, you can upload it into Power BI Azure Map visual.

download GeoJSON file from here

Now you can use it in the Power BI desktop Azure Map visual.

Azure Map Visual with GeoJSON Layer

In this part, you need to click on the Format, then Reference Layer, click on Add Local file.

The Map should Look like as below

As you can see in the above visual, the Auckland region layer map has been put on the top of the original map.

Traffic Layer

there is a pre-build Layer name Traffic Layer, that shows the real-time traffic data on top of the map, to enable this one, you can click on the format of the visual, then click on the Traffic Layer section and Enable it.

As you can see in the below screenshot, the map showing all Road works traffics ( We are in Lockdown so no that matches traffic there 🙂 )

In the next post, I am going to write about how to create and use a Tile Layer in Azure Map visual.

Leila Etaati

Trainer, Consultant, Mentor

Leila is the first Microsoft AI MVP in New Zealand and Australia, She has Ph.D. in Information System from the University Of Auckland. She is the Co-director and data scientist in RADACAD Company with more than 100 clients in around the world. She is the co-organizer of Microsoft Business Intelligence and Power BI Use group (meetup) in Auckland with more than 1200 members, She is the co-organizer of three main conferences in Auckland: SQL Saturday Auckland (2015 till now) with more than 400 registrations, Difinity (2017 till now) with more than 200 registrations and Global AI Bootcamp 2018. She is a Data Scientist, BI Consultant, Trainer, and Speaker. She is a well-known International Speakers to many conferences such as Microsoft ignite, SQL pass, Data Platform Summit, SQL Saturday, Power BI world Tour and so forth in Europe, USA, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. She has over ten years’ experience working with databases and software systems. She was involved in many large-scale projects for big-sized companies. She also AI and Data Platform Microsoft MVP. Leila is an active Technical Microsoft AI blogger for RADACAD.