I want to provide an example for how to plot 3D map plots with the deckgl package in R. I generate a bar plot on a map layout from Mapbox.

First, I define our Open Street Map geocoding function, found on datascienceplus.com. It geocodes address strings into longitude and latitude coordinates using the Open Street Map API (OSM-API).

## documentation: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim
# source: https://datascienceplus.com/osm-nominatim-with-r-getting-locations-geo-coordinates-by-its-address/
osm_geocoder <- function(address = NULL)
{
  if(suppressWarnings(is.null(address)))
    return(data.frame())
  
  tryCatch(
    d <- jsonlite::fromJSON( 
      gsub('\\@addr\\@', gsub('\\s+', '\\%20', address), 
           'http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search/@addr@?format=json&addressdetails=0&limit=1')
    ), error = function(c) return(data.frame())
  )
  
  if(length(d) == 0) 
    return(data.frame())
  
  return(data.frame(lon = as.numeric(d$lon), lat = as.numeric(d$lat)))
}

After that, I build a list with city names. I feed this list to the geocoding function, thereby generating a geocoded data frame.

city_list <- c("Frankfurt, Germany",
               "Dortmund, Germany",
               "Berlin, Germany",
               "Stuttgart, Germany",
               "Karlsruhe, Germany",
               "Zurich, Switzerland", 
               "Wien, Austria", 
               "Bern, Switzerland",
               "Munich, Germany",
               "Marburg, Germany",
               "Giessen, Germany",
               "Pforzheim, Germany",
               "Cologne, Germany", 
               "Essen, Germany", 
               "Heidelberg, Germany",
               "Kassel, Germany",
               "Paderborn, Germany",
               "Leipzig, Germany",
               "Dresden, Germany",
               "Nuremberg, Germany",
               "Augsburg, Germany",
               "Regensburg, Germany",
               "Pilsen, Czech Republic",
               "Linz, Austria",
               "Innsbruck, Austria",
               "Bamberg, Germany",
               "Fulda, Germany",
               "Hanover, Germany",
               "Wolfsburg, Germany",
               "Magdeburg, Germany",
               "Jena, Germany",
               "Chemnitz, Germany",
               "Zwickau, Germany",
               "Cottbus, Germany",
               "Bautzen, Germany",
               "Mainz, Germany",
               "Bonn, Germany",
               "Duesseldorf, Germany",
               "Trier, Germany",
               "Mannheim, Germany",
               "Aachen, Germany",
               "Freiburg, Germany",
               "Ulm, Germany",
               "Kempten, Germany",
               "Ingolstadt, Germany")

# lets generate a data frame that we can use for the add_grid_layer function
data_df_columns <- data.frame(matrix(nrow=3500*length(city_list),ncol=4))
colnames(data_df_columns) <- c("ADDRESS","RACKS","SPACES","COORDINATES")

data_df_columns$RACKS <- 2
data_df_columns$SPACES <- 4

for(i in 1:length(city_list)){
  print(i)
  dum_coord <- osm_geocoder(city_list[i])
  for(j in 1:3500){
    data_df_columns$ADDRESS <- paste0(city_list[i]," : ",j)
    dum_long <- rnorm(1, mean=as.numeric(dum_coord[1]),sd=0.75)  
    dum_lat <- rnorm(1,mean=as.numeric(dum_coord[2]),sd=0.75)
    data_df_columns$COORDINATES[(i-1)*3500+j] <- list(c(dum_long, dum_lat))
  }
}

properties_grid <- list(
  pickable = TRUE,
  extruded = TRUE,
  cellSize = 1600,
  elevationScale = 8,
  coverage = 0.5,
  colorRange = list(c(0,255,255),
                    c(0,204,255),
                    c(0,153,255),
                    c(0,51,255),
                    c(0,0,255),
                    c(0,0,204)),
  getPosition = JS("data => data.COORDINATES"),
  getTooltip = JS("object => object.count")
)

Once I have a dataset with my artifically created spatial data points, geocoded with the geocoding function, I can plot them using the deckgl package in R. The basemaps are created in Mapbox.

deckgl(zoom = 10, pitch = 120, longitude = 8.682092, latitude = 50.11064) %>%
  add_grid_layer(data = data_df_columns,properties = properties_grid) %>%
  add_mapbox_basemap(style = "mapbox://styles/linnartsf/cjq6p9q8f8zwf2rp74qf2o3d5")

I have published some other posts of spatial data visualisation in R that you might want to check out.

Linnart Felkl

Data scientist focusing on simulation, optimization and modeling in R, SQL, VBA and Python