animating maps issues and questions

[jlacko]

It is not easy to troubleshoot your code without access to your data.

For a reproducible example of an animated map built with {ggplot2} and {gganimate} on top of a spatial object consider this post:

Best packages for making map? leaflet vs ggmap vs sf vs ...?

I think that ggplot and leaflet will handle most of your needs. A honorable mention goes to tmap package - https://github.com/mtennekes/tmap. It introduces yet another map making syntax, and produces decent maps with very little tweaking. It supports both static and dynamic output. But competing against ggplot in static maps is hard, and in dynamic mapping using leaflet directly gives you more control. If you are familiar with ggplot syntax I would leave it out. And as my curiosity got the better of me I propose a workflow for animated maps, built on ggplot and gganimate. The hardest part was faking the data to be animated; at the end I ended up recycling the well known & loved pressure d…

It is a part of a longer thread about visualizing spatial data and it is built on the widely available North Carolina shapefile (it ships with {sf}, so just about everybody has access to it).

Have a look at it and if your doubts remain come back to me, I would be happy to help.