mapgl Workshop Series Bundle

The new mapgl R package gives you access to the powerful Mapbox GL JS and Maplibre GL JS web mapping libraries - and this workshop bundle is the best way to learn it.

Get access to 7.5 hours of workshop videos along with three step-by-step annotated tutorials in Quarto format to get you started with mapgl. Descriptions of the three workshops are found below.

Workshop 1: Make Stunning Web Maps in R with the mapgl package

In this 2.5 hour workshop, you will get started with mapgl, a brand-new R package for interactive mapping with the powerful web mapping libraries Mapbox GL JS and MapLibre GL JS.

The workshop will be packed with insights not found anywhere else to help you supercharge your web mapping projects. The first part of the workshop will teach you the fundamentals of working with the mapgl package. You'll learn how to set up a Mapbox or MapLibre mapping project in R and set up custom views and animations. In the second part of the workshop, we'll go deeper into the powerful data visualization capabilities of mapgl. You'll learn how to add your data as layers, helping you create filled maps, heatmaps, and even 3D visualizations.

Part 3 of the workshop covers map styling with mapgl. You'll create a global demographic map and style it with continuous, classed, and categorical colors in a non-Mercator projection. You'll also learn how to add components like legends, hover effects, and custom pop-ups and tooltips to your maps to make your visualizations presentation-ready.

The last part of the workshop included a live question-and-answer session where we worked through some bonus use-cases for the mapgl package.

Workshop 2: Dynamic Business Intelligence Apps in R with Shiny and mapgl

This 2.5 hour workshop will give you the tools to build dynamic and fast business intelligence applications using R, Shiny, and the brand-new mapgl R package. mapgl is designed to empower your Shiny development, and this workshop will contain insights not found anywhere else.

In the first hour, you'll gain the skills necessary to build high-performance web mapping apps with Mapbox and MapLibre from the comfort of R and Shiny. Add performant layers to your maps, and use Shiny's interactivity to create smooth map animations for your users.

The second hour will delve deeper into special functionality built-in to mapgl to help you achieve native JavaScript-level performance in your Shiny apps. You'll learn how to dynamically query and re-style your data on the fly, and build business intelligence tools that help users query and interact with your data with no performance lag.

We cover three "mini-projects" in the workshop to help you learn how to use mapgl in Shiny. You'll create an animated "globe explorer" app; you'll build apps to analyze data for the 2020 US Presidential election; and you'll create a business intelligence tool for a coffee shop chain.

The last part of the workshop was a live question-and-answer session where participants asked a wide range of questions about R, Shiny, and mapgl.

Workshop 3: Visualize US Census Data in R with tidycensus and mapgl

This 2.5 hour workshop will teach you all about how to acquire demographic data from the US Census Bureau and make stunning cartographic visualizations of your Census data with the brand-new mapgl R package.

In the first part of the workshop, you'll learn how to use the tidycensus R package for acquiring and analyzing US Census data on topics like income, race / ethnicity, home values, and much more. We'll then walk through how to create a wide range of interactive maps of US Census data such as choropleth, graduated symbol, and dot-density maps using the powerful Mapbox and MapLibre libraries available in the mapgl package.

In the second part, we'll cover how to solve common problems that arise when visualizing US Census data. This will include visualizing change over time in three dimensions; how to shift and rescale Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico on an interactive map; and best practices for performant large-scale demographic mapping, such as Census tracts across the United States!

The last part of the workshop was a live question-and-answer session where participants asked a range of mapping questions and got a live demo of some new features in mapgl.

About the instructor:

Kyle Walker is an internationally-recognized researcher, consultant, and software developer in the field of spatial data science, and was the 2022 recipient of the Spatial Data Scientist of the Year award from the software company CARTO. He is the author of the book Analyzing US Census Data: Methods, Maps, and Models in R, and has published several popular software packages for spatial data science in R and Python including tidycensus that have been collectively downloaded over 1 million times.

What past workshop participants have said:

"I wanted to thank you for the amazing R mapping trainings you provided. They were extremely helpful and sparked some very exciting ideas about how our center can use these resources."

"One thing that really stood out was how you shared your own workflow through real-life examples. Seeing the direct application of tidycensus to our day-to-day tasks was a game-changer. It’s safe to say that we’re all feeling a lot more confident about integrating these techniques into our work."

"Your assistance in streamlining some of our existing workflows was a huge bonus. It’s not just the “how-to” that’s valuable, but also the practical insights you provided."

"Your excitement about the whole topic was infectious. It’s not easy to keep a group engaged... but you nailed it. Your enthusiasm made a huge difference."