via Medium, 22 May 2024: Maria Mouschoutzi’s PhD work used Python’s Dash, Dash Leaflet, and SeaRoute libraries to create an interactive map visualization of the Maritime Silk Road. The SeaRoute library calculates sea paths, while Dash Leaflet integrates these paths into a Dash app. This visualization aids in displaying the shortest maritime routes without crossing land, showcasing the capabilities of these open-source tools. Subscriber access – I managed to create an account for free to view the article.
One of the tricky parts of my PhD was creating an interactive map visualization showcasing the maritime routes of ships from one port to another. The route of a ship between an origin and a destination port should be a path solely at sea, without crossing any land. Surprisingly, this seemingly straightforward task proved to be quite challenging when attempting to implement it from scratch in Python 🤷♀️. While there are commercial solutions like Marine Traffic available for performing similar tasks, I was looking for an open-source alternative, which I couldn’t find for a long time. Finally, in late 2022, the SeaRoute library was released for Python (previously it was only available for Java), and it made my life a lot easier. In this article, I’ll guide you through the process of creating an interactive map visualization for a Dash app, allowing you to display sea routes using the Dash Leaflet and SeaRoute Python libraries.
