topic Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA in SAS Visual Analytics

GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 04:13:00 GMT

Hi,

Does anyone know how to Geomap Australian postcodes on SAS VA.

I am using the ESRI shapefiles that can be downloaded from the ABS.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/1270.0.55.003July%202016?OpenDocument

Thanks

David

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 19:25:59 GMT

Hi David,

In the current releases of VA, adding custom geo regions is an unsupported workaround.

In VA 7.4, this feature will be supported and there will be documentation in the VA Administrator's Guide.

Meanwhile you might want to look at this thread:

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Visual-Analytics/Geo-Maps-for-Australia/m-p/323845/

Thanks,

Sam

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 02:18:02 GMT

Hi Sam,

Looking at those threads, I have managed to create the "bubbles" using the x and y (lat and long) co-ordinates. However, I am still struggling with the "regions" bit.

From the threads, it looks like if I want anything more granular than the default SAS maps, I will need to alter the ATTRLOOKUP and CENTLOOKUP files in the Valib library, which is fine because I can work that out later.

The problem is that I cannot even point to the default Australian maps in the libraries: MAPS and MAPSGFK to show up as regions in SAS VA.

David

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 12:48:47 GMT

Hi David,

That is correct, you need to alter the ATTRLOOKUP and CENTLOOKUP files. (Be sure to back them up first!)

I am going to have someone from tech support provide a little more info (despite the unsupported status, they have good information about how this works)

Thanks,
Sam

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 12:51:20 GMT

Oh, also: you say you cannot point to MAPS or MAPSGFK -- you can use these libraries a SAS programming environment, right? Like with PROC GMAP?

It is expected (though frustrating) that the geo regions in those libraries are not available in VA.

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 22:54:37 GMT

Yes I can PROC GMAP it, but I found a way around in VA. I just import the data into VA from MAPS/MAPSGFK location.

It is frustrating because I was able to produce a postcode level heat map using PROC GMAP, because I could not zoom and pan the map, I thought VA would be a better tool not realising how difficult it would be.

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 12:41:02 GMT

Hi David, did you not want to make a region (choropleth) map? Altering the ATTRLOOKUP and CENTLOOKUP is needed only for region maps.

Thanks,
Sam

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 21:57:48 GMT

Correct, choropleth map (heat map).

I am trying the alterations to the ATTRLOOKUP and CENTLOOKUP files in the next few days, the instructions are not very clear.

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 23:47:10 GMT

Now that VA 7.4 has shipped, I can point you here:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/vaag/69958/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n0g5kjtnbvsrwbn1lxl2wahyc5du.htm

These instructions are for 7.4, but they should also work in 7.1-7.3. This process is not *supported* on those releases, however.

Let us know how it goes if you try it!

Thanks,

Sam

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 00:05:34 GMT

Awesome, very clear.

Just one question, when I proc mapimport the shape files from ABS, the final dataset has the projected x and y, but not the unprojected lat and long (used by VA). Is there a function to convert projected to unprojected?

David

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 00:12:35 GMT

I'm not sure about the answer to your question, but it is recommended that you use the SAS program provided here:
http://support.sas.com/rnd/datavisualization/vageo/va74polygons.sas

The link to this from the doc is broken and I will fix it ASAP 😞

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 01:46:12 GMT

Sam,

I cannot seem to get this working, the map does not load without any error messages.

I think it is because I am missing unprojected Lat and Long.

According to the documentation:

LONG

contains the unprojected longitude value for the point specified in this region. SAS Visual Analytics uses this value for its polygons. Therefore, this value is required to be present and accurate in the final file.

LAT

contains the unprojected latitude value for the point specified in this region. SAS Visual Analytics uses this value for its polygons. Therefore, this value is required to be present and accurate in the final file.

However, in the link to va74polygons.sas, the code just assigns the X and Y (projected) as the Lat and Long.

/* Step 3: Create the final polygon data set with the required set of columns. We are going to create a new
shorter ID column here as the original ID columns are often long and unnecessarily complex. Note, we also apply 
the previously created idname format to the IDNAME column. 
*/
data &REGION_DATASET.;
   set &REGION_DATASET.(keep=&REGION_SHP_ID_COL. X Y SEGMENT DENSITY);

   /* create new (shorter) ID */
   length _TMP_ $60. _SID_ 8.;

   if (_n_ eq 1) then
      do;
         _SID_ = 1;
         _TMP_ = &REGION_SHP_ID_COL.;
      end;

   if _TMP_ ne &REGION_SHP_ID_COL. then
      _SID_ = _SID_ + 1;
   _TMP_ = &REGION_SHP_ID_COL.;
   retain _TMP_ _SID_;
   drop _TMP_ _SID_;
   _RID_ = compress("&REGION_PREFIX.-" || put(_SID_,8.));
   IDNAME = put(&REGION_SHP_ID_COL., idname.);
   LONG = X;
   LAT = Y;
   ISO = "&REGION_ISO.";
   RESOLUTION = 1;
   LAKE = 0;
   ISOALPHA2 = "&REGION_PREFIX.";
   AdminType = "regions";
   where density<&REGION_SHP_DENSITY.;
   keep _RID_ SEGMENT IDNAME LONG LAT X Y ISO DENSITY RESOLUTION LAKE ISOALPHA2 AdminType;
   rename _RID_=ID;
run;

David

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 05:07:15 GMT

Hi,

Actually never mind, my map does have the unprojected degrees Lat and Long (compared against MAPSGFK.AUSTRALIA).

I don't know then why it does not work for me.

David

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 12:45:43 GMT

Hi David,

So does the va74polygons.sas program run without errors in the SAS log?

Did you restart the web application server where VA is deployed?

Did you perform this step, especially the bolded part?

MAPSCSTM Library

Before you can create custom polygons, you must define a MAPSCSTM library to contain the custom polygon data sets. The recommended location for this library is at SASHOME/SASFoundation/9.4/mapscstm or within the same directory location as the default MAPSGFK library. Include a LIBNAME statement in your appserver_autoexec_usermods.sas file, located by default at config-dir/Lev1/SASApp that references this directory. If your SAS Visual Analytics deployment runs on multiple server contexts, then add the LIBNAME statement to the file for each server context.

Thanks,

Sam

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 02:17:15 GMT

Yes I have done all the above.

I wonder if it could be the CENTLOOKUP file?

E.g. pre-existing Africa is

MAPSGFK.VAAFRICA ZM 25.453593492 -13.158901
MAPSGFK.VAAFRICA1 ZM-1 29.818409448 -13.8493635

but for custom region it is the same map

MAPSCSTM.AUS_POA1_NT1 NT 143.16289226 -31.30053917
MAPSCSTM.AUS_POA1_NT1 NT-1 130.84323616 -12.46017601

David

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 11:56:20 GMT

Can you tell us more about what you are seeing in VA? Are you able to define a geography data item for the custom region?

Can you complete the testing steps documented here?

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/vaag/69958/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p16obhz546nr6tn1aqkhaxlelswx.htm

Thanks,

Sam

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

davidbao — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 02:29:59 GMT

Sam,

It is now working!!

Thank you for holding my hand throughout the process.

The key step I missed was:

Note that the SAS Workspace Server must have access to read this custom map library. Also, a restart of the SAS Object Spawner is required to pick up this autoexec modification.

I got that from Angela's Hall's paper.

Many thanks

David

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 12:44:48 GMT

Great!!!

Sorry you have had so much trouble with this. I'm going to check with the development team and see if that last step should be added to the documentation.

Thanks,
Sam

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

jltz83 — Thu, 18 May 2017 13:27:15 GMT

I'm wondering if you can point me in the direction of documentation that explains why the custom map directory is necessary. If VA has access to the directory where my lookup tables are stored, shouldn't I also be able to put my boundary files there? I'm not suggesting this would be a good idea long-term; but, as I was going through the process of modifying lookup tables, I thought I could direct the CENTLOOKUP to read boundary data from VALIB, temporarily. As it turns out, this is not the case.

I'm confused as to why this doesn't work. How will VA know to treat my boundary files differnetly when accessing them from the CUSTMAP directory once it is created? Is it necessary that this directory/library has a certain name? If not, I'm even more confused as to why just placing the boundary data in VALIB doesn't work as I expect.

Re: GeoMapping with SAS VA

Sam_SAS — Thu, 18 May 2017 14:31:08 GMT

Hello jltz83,

Are you following the directions and using the code from the documentation here?

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/vaag/69958/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n0g5kjtnbvsrwbn1lxl2wahyc5du.htm

In theory I think it would work to put your files in VALIB. I could be wrong, but I believe the MAPSCSTM directory/library is created for "best practices" reasons to keep your VALIB directory clean.

Sam