Spatial Studio 21.3 is now available.
Spatial Studio is a self-service, no-code mapping tool that allows you to visualize, explore, and analyze geospatial data stored in and managed by Oracle - in the cloud and on-premises.
This release includes new features to easily enrich your maps with more data. You can now visualize non-spatial datasets on a map by joining them to an existing spatial dataset. Several new features also make it easier to interact with and customize your map visualizations. And enhancements have been added for better security and stability.
Here are some of the feature highlights in Spatial Studio 21.3.
Visualizing Non-spatial Datasets
Many datasets do not have geometry columns built-in, so previously, they could not easily be viewed on a map. In 21.3, you can now join a non-spatial dataset to an existing “reference” spatial dataset and quickly view the new joined dataset on a map.
In this example, we’ve taken a non-spatial dataset that has income and poverty levels by state and joined it to a spatial dataset that has state geometries. To join, the values of the key columns on both the non-spatial dataset and the spatial dataset must be equal. With this feature, you can easily enrich your maps with more data so they communicate more meaningful information.
Choropleth Mapping Based on a Color Column
Choropleth mapping assigns a color to each feature in a dataset. In previous releases, the colors created by Spatial Studio are based on the number of categories or “bins” you pick. Each feature’s color is determined by the bin the feature’s numeric value column belongs to.
In 21.3, you also have the option to use color values already stored in a column when coloring each feature/row in a dataset. This provides flexibility and consistency, as each feature is already associated with a color value.
In the screenshot below, each submarine cable is color-coded based on the value that is stored in the database in the column “color”.
Selection Tolerance
If you have many small points, markers, or thin lines on a map, it can be difficult to accurately select them with your mouse cursor. You must be precise where you click to select the actual point or line that you want.
This feature adds selection tolerance to a map. You can now increase (or decrease) the selection tolerance on a per-layer basis, as shown below. This enables you to enlarge the clickable area around a small data point or thin line geometries on a map that were previously hard to click and select accurately.
Custom Basemap from a WMS Service
A wealth of maps and map data is available over the web. Thanks to open standard formats from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), these maps can be easily shared and accessed by others – all you need is a supported web-based client application. OGC’s Web Map Service (WMS) enables you to get map images of geospatial data, and gain detailed information on specific features shown on a map.
In previous Spatial Studio releases you could add raster tile and vector tile background maps via the custom basemap map dialog. Now you can also add Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Services (WMS) as basemaps. All you do is enter the WMS URL and API key on the custom basemap screen.
Map Visualization Right-Click Actions
If you right-click your mouse on a map, a context menu will be shown. You can either inspect and copy the current mouse pointer’s lat/long coordinates from the context menu or select the “Drop a pin” menu item to add a map pin to the map.
Preventing Multiple Spatial Studios Instances from Accessing the Same Metadata Schema
When Spatial Studio accesses and stores its metadata in the metadata schema, it encrypts sensitive information such as customer-defined database schema connection details or external map service api keys. The master seed or password for these encryptions are stored in Spatial Studio’s sgtech_config.json config file.
A new mechanism has been introduced to automatically detect if more Spatial Studio instances are attempting to access the metadata schema using different master keys. If such an attempt is detected, the user will be warned that the metadata schema is already bound to another instance and the current Spatial Studio instance will be prevented from completing its startup process unless it is corrected.
Visualizing Lat/Long Columns in a View
When you create a dataset based on a view that contains a latitude and longitude column, you can prepare this dataset to be map-visualization ready by creating (or rather, reusing) the lat/long index already defined in the view’s base table. This enables a new category of ad hoc analyses, which wasn’t available prior to 21.3.
Additional Information
This release also includes bug fixes resulting in higher quality and stability for Spatial Studio users.
For more information about some of the other new features in Spatial Studio 21.3, please see the Release Notes.
Get Started with Spatial Studio.
Senior Principal Product Manager - Oracle Spatial and Graph
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