Your maps help you understand your data. They tell a story that a standard spreadsheet just doesn’t make possible. With our new Advanced Mode, we’ve enhanced the visual map by selectively exposing the data it contains. You can use sort, select, and copy any of your data in spreadsheet-like format. We’ve also included visual selection tools (rectangles and circles), as well as a handy distance measuring tool. BatchGeo’s Advanced Mode is available to all Pro users. We think it’s so useful that we’ve switched it on by default (you can adjust this in the Pro menu in the upper right corner of any map).

Data Sorting, Selecting, and Copying

At the heart of Advanced Mode is the Data View, which can be activated from the context menu by right clicking on the map. The height-adjustable table looks a lot like a spreadsheet. It also acts a lot like a spreadsheet, allowing you to sort columns and select rows. Then you can copy the selected data to paste back into a spreadsheet or use as a new BatchGeo map.

To sort, click a column heading. To reverse the sort order, click again. When you’re ready to select several rows, click and drag to highlight them all—you may see the map view change in response as it displays those you’ve selected. To select (or un-select) one at a time, hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) and click on the desired row.

When you’re ready to copy your selected data, just activate the context menu with a right click above the data view and choose Copy.

Select Visually Using the Drawing Tools

Sorting and selecting via the Data View will likely feel familiar to working with spreadsheets. You can also highlight the map geographically, with your selection translating to the table below. The drawing tools in the upper left of the map bring the power of visual selection to your data view. Use the rectangle and circle tools to choose just the markers you want to include. Then copy them as you would when selecting data in the table itself.

To select using the bounding box, choose the rectangular tool icon. Position your cursor to one of the corners of the area you want to select. Then click and hold your mouse while you draw the box around the markers you want to select. The circle tool is similar, but instead of starting at one corner, you begin in the middle of your selection. In both cases, you can hold shift while selecting to extend your selection.

In addition to visual and data selection, there are two other features of Advanced Mode we want to point out.

View Heat Maps to Expose Marker Density

There are already a number of ways to visualize the density of locations using a BatchGeo map. Since we display all the markers, more in one area will naturally cause them to overlap. You can also use our map clustering feature, which is a great way to share the data within your map publicly. As part of Advanced Mode, we’ve added heat maps, which gives any Pro user the ability to toggle a heat map view of the geographic data.

To activate the Heat View, just select it in the context menu with a right click above the map. Once activated, it will become your own personal default view on any map until you deactivate it using the same context menu on any map. The Heat View will only be visible to users that are part of your Pro plan using the web interface, and only if they use the same menu to activate.

Heat View is the best way to visualize the density of locations to uncover the story within your data. We think you’ll like it.

Calculate the Distance Between Markers

Finally, a fun little feature that we’ve found surprisingly useful. How many times have you wanted to know the distance between points on your map, or how far a marker is from a landmark? This happens to us all the time, so we added another tool to calculate on the fly.

Select the little ruler icon in the upper left menu. Then click and hold where you want your line to start. As you drag the cursor, you’ll see the distance displayed. It uses a straight, as-the-crow-flies calculation. You can take as many measurements as you like, and let go of the mouse click whenever you’re done.

Uncover More in Your Maps

We’ve heard from other BatchGeo Pro members that these tools help them find more value within their data. You can zero in on the customers, leads, or other location data that is important in the moment. The new Data View allows for easily exporting subsets of your spreadsheets, with the visual selection bringing brand new ways to geographically slice and dice your data.

Let us know what you think. If you haven’t yet, you can upgrade to Pro with our no-risk 30-day refund guarantee.

We’re fond of the notion that maps tell a story. A spreadsheet can be a great way to organize data, but it also obfuscates insights that are made clear visually. Sometimes the underlying story is a good one, like the 36 hours of #love. Other times, as with the map of worldwide homicide data below, the story can expose some negative trends. A lot of good can come from telling a bad story. It can open eyes, inspire change, or simply start a conversation.

View Homicide Rates of World Cities in a full screen map

All of the cities on the homicide map have higher murder rates than anybody wants, though some are much worse than others. The homicide rate typically used to compare cities is the number of murders per 100,000 population of a city. This allows for more direct comparisons than actual homicide numbers.

Although, no matter how you look at the data, Mexico and south in the Americas have some serious issues. The highest homicide rate is in Iguala, Mexico. Its 183 murders for just 118,102 population put it at a rate of 154.95. Another 11 cities also have a rate of at least 100. The largest city in the bunch, San Pedro Sula in Honduras saw 2,777 murders in 2013 (the most recent data) for its population of just over 2 million. That’s a rate of 127.45 per 100,000.

In terms of raw homicide numbers, the only places outside of the above region with more than 1,000 murders is Karachi, Pakistan (population 21 million), and the three largest cities in South Africa.

By comparison, the United States looks tame, with every city on the lower end of the homicide rate. That said, the US has more cities on this map than any other country, with 16. The next highest is Columbia (15), then South Africa (12), Mexico (12), and Brazil (11). To appear on the list at all, these cities have some of the highest violent crime in the world.

Of course, these numbers are all self-reported. There is huge unrest in some African countries, for example, that isn’t tracked here. Also, areas at war are not included.

There are many other insights to be found in this map, or any map you make. Use BatchGeo’s grouping feature to filter and expose the stories within your data. Then go tell them.

A light flashes in the sky, a shape emerges that you cannot quite identify as manmade. Could it be a UFO? My strict definition, that object is both flying and unidentified. If you’re like thousands of others across the United States who have seen these, you’ll submit it through an online form or by calling a hotline. In 2015 alone, there were over 6,000 UFO reports, many including shapes and other details. We’ve plotted every one of these reports on the BatchGeo maps below.

View 2015 UFO Sightings, sum clustering in a full screen map

We’ve used our map clustering feature to show an overview of the more than 1,000 cities that had two or more potentially extraterrestrial sightings in 2015. This accounts for more than half of the overall sightings. The sum clustering shows the total reports for a region, and you can click a cluster to zoom into the area. Once you get to an individual marker, its contents will show the details of the most recent sighting.

All 6,267 reports are available in the detail map below, but this overview map gives a good idea of where you’re most likely to see a UFO—or, at least, where people are more likely to report them. This data was gathered by the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC).

While reports are predictably more common in higher population areas, big cities like New York and Los Angeles do not make the top 10. Phoenix had the most reports with 42, followed closely by Las Vegas at 41. Tucson, Portland (OR), and Chicago round out the top five, with around 25 reports each. Orlando, Boise, Albuquerque, San Diego, and Seattle complete the top 10.

Famous UFO landing spot Roswell, New Mexico, only had two reports in 2015, the same number as Roswell, Georgia.

View 2015 UFO Sightings in the US (detail) in a full screen map

The above detailed version of the UFO data shows every report from 2015. This can be great fun—or research—browsing the sightings near you. The details in the reports are sometimes humorous, sometimes insightful, as NUFORC attempts to explain some as satellites or stars.

One of the most interesting pieces of data in the reports are the shapes of the UFOs. The classic “flying saucer” disk is not as popular as you might expect (198 sightings, 10th most common). That said, circle (#2) and sphere (#5) were common. Seen in 20% of the reports, by far the most common “shape,” simply describes the UFO as light.

Have you seen a UFO? You’re not alone. You can join thousands of others by reporting it to NUFORC. Or grab the latest data and use it to create a BatchGeo map of your own.