Creating a Bing Map with Custom Regions

You can create a Bing map with custom regions. For example you can create a map that splits the state of Texas into two parts: North and South.

Each custom region must be defined as a polygon. This means that the starting point and the ending point must be the same.

Prerequisite: Google Earth (free download) is required.

These are the high-level steps to create a Bing map with custom regions:

Create KML files

Modify a KML file to use in Birst

Create your map in Birst

Creating KML Files

You need to create a KML file for each region you want to define in the map.

To create KML files

Open Google Earth. Zoom into the general area where you’d like to create your first region. In our example we’ve zoomed in on the state of Texas.

Using the icon tool bar above the map, click on the Add Polygon

icon. A dialog will appear. Reposition the dialog to the side of the map.

To draw a region (polygon), click on the perimeter of the region. Move the cursor to the next location on the perimeter and click again, continuing in a circular pattern around the region. Continue this process, clicking at small intervals to fully outline the desired region. Each click creates a straight line from the previous click.

Tip: Polygons need to be completely closed. This means once you fully outline the polygon you need to make sure to end at the same location where you began.

In the New Polygon dialog, supply a name for the polygon. The name needs to be the same name as the data value in Infor used to identify that region. Click OK. This completes one region or polygon.

Draw a new polygon for the next region following the same steps as above. For our example, we want to split Texas into two regions so you would draw a new polygon for the second region.

After all polygons have been drawn, right-click the first polygon in the navigation pane on the left. Select Save Place As… and save the file (.KML) to your computer. Follow the same process for each polygon created.

Modifying a KML File to Use in Birst

At this point you will have multiple KML files downloaded from Google Earth. Within each file is the polygon you drew. These polygons need to be combined into one KML file that will then be uploaded to Birst.

To combine the KML files into one file

Open one of the KML files you downloaded with a text editor. This will become the main KML file that you will load into Birst. You can name it anything you’d like.

Keeping the main KML file open, open one of the other KML files. Select all the text starting with <Placemark> and ending with </Placemark>. Copy it.

In the main KML file, paste the placemark text from the previous file under the last tag marked </Placemark>. Continue copying and pasting into the main KML file from all the polygon files created. For this example, there are only two files.

Refer to the image below which shows how the regions from both KML files have been combined. Notice there are two “placemark” sections: one for Texas_North and one for Texas_South.

Creating Your Map in Birst

The last step is to upload the KML file to a space and add it to a report.

To create the map in Birst:

10.

In Designer, create the report that will drive the Bing map.

11.

Create a new chart of type Bing Map, setting a Category and Series.

Important: The values for the chart Category need to match the placemark names in the KML file.

12.

On the Other tab, click the Upload button to upload the new KML file.

13.

After the upload completes, select the file from the Region dropdown.

14.

Click Apply/OK in the dialog boxes to return back to the report. You will see your map with custom regions drawn as in the example below.