ships-gif

Ships across the Scottish seas

View the map

About the map

Ever considered how many ships there are out at sea at any one time? Or perhaps you’ve wondered where a ship is heading that you’ve spotted from the coast?

This map takes a deep dive into the waters around Scotland, tracking shipping over a two-day period. The ship locations are displayed in an effective and eye-catching animated map.

Why it works

While ships may sail smoothly, they also sail slowly. Therefore, to reveal exactly how and where they move, we need to think carefully about the visualisation approach. Using a time animation, we can accelerate through days' worth of shipping activity and clearly show ship tracks and the vessel types.

This animated map reveals over 250,000 reported ship locations. To make sense of this, we can use map effects to create a visual hierarchy. By de-emphasising the less prevalent points, we draw attention to the most recent position of each vessel, using bright colours which contrast against the dark basemap.

Important Steps

  • 1.

    In the Item Overview tab of your point layer in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise, ensure Time is set to Enabled.

  • 2.

    Differentiate between the points by symbolising the ships with different colours, categorised by vessel type.

  • 3.

    As we are focusing on the seas, use the Vector Tile Style Editor to create a custom basemap style, removing land labels from the map.

  • 4.

    Create an Instant App, using the Time Slider template to animate the ship locations over time.

  • 5.

    Customise the app by altering play speed, interactivity, theme and layout. You can also apply effects to the static features in your map.

Previous
Next

Requirements

  • Data and software

    The historic ship data was provided by Spire and shows all vessel types that sailed close to Scotland over a two-day period. Data processing, visualisation and animation all took place in ArcGIS Online.

  • Analysis

    As we are simply showing the location of ships, no analysis was required for this map.

  • Time

    ArcGIS Instant Apps are easy to configure, and it took very little time to create the animation. Whilst still a quick process, the largest portion of time was spent on the visualisation, symbolising the point layer and customising the basemap.

Previous
Next

Tips and tricks

  • ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World

    Explore the Living Atlas for layers to add detail and further interest to your map such as bathymetry and grid lines.

  • Map Viewer Effects

    Make use of Map Viewer Effects such as Bloom to add emphasis to ship locations. You can also add effects in the Time Slider app configuration.

  • Orientation

    Don’t be afraid to turn the world on its head…or its side in this case! Here, Scotland has been rotated on its side to show all ships around the mainland and islands.

Previous
Next

Links & Resources

Previous
Next
Claudia Hodgson, Junior Customer Success Consultant

Map Author

Claudia Hodgson

Claudia is a Junior Customer Success Consultant in the Product Communications Team at Esri UK. Alongside her passion for GIS, Claudia is also a keen foodie and lover of the outdoors.

Start making maps with a free trial of ArcGIS Online

Try ArcGIS