The http://apex.oracle.com website was recently upgraded to a pre-release version of APEX 21.1 which has a host of new features available for preview. One which specifically interested me was the new maps region.
I already had some geocoded data in a table (using Spatial Studio) which holds information about a fictional restaurant and also their customers and their spend so I thought that I would try the new maps feature with that data.
Without much effort I can create the map shown below.
I can then add another map layer for the restaurant data and whilst doing that I can see that the options for Geometry Data Types are SDO_GEOMETRY, GeoJSON or Long/Lat.
I can perform spatial operations on the data using SQL, for example dynamically restricting the customers to be within a certain distance of the restaurant and I can create some parameters to allow me to put in the radius from the restaurant and also put in a SQL analytic function to rank the customers by spend. By adding in a couple of JET charts to show some associated data and doing some colour coding and sizing to enhance the visualisation, then I can create something that looks like this allowing me to see all my customers within X miles of the restaurant and those who are the top spenders and in which categories they are.
The new map addition certainly looks like a really interesting new feature and I can’t wait for APEX 21.1 to go production and to see the full documentation.