Interactive line and polygon flow maps
Well-designed origin-destination flow maps remain difficult to automatically draw, mainly due to the complexity of managing and clearing clutter caused by overlapping flow paths. A few automated methods to create these exist, but most generally allow little, if any, customization of the output. This research presents further functionality and advancements of an existing free and open source, interactive, semi-automated flow mapping script for generating and customizing flow paths for use in geographic information system (GIS) or web map settings. Written in Python, the script accepts a comma-separated values file of origins and destinations along with attributes such as the magnitude of flows, and produces output flow paths. Previously, the script only produced skeletal flow polylines which could then be symbolized in subsequent GIS software packages; the script now also optionally produces polygon arrows suitable for direct loading into, for example, webmaps. Further, an interactive GUI is being developed that allows users to tweak arrow path parameters and see their changes in real time, before writing output to file. The presentation will live demonstrate the software in action, particularly in producing polygon arrows.