KMZ Support in Tableau: New in Tableau 2021.1
KMZ files are Zipped KML files and you can now connect to them directly.
- A KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file is a Google-designed format for delivering spatial data efficiently, and a KMZ file is simply that same KML packaged inside a zip folder.
- Tableau 2021.1 lets you connect directly to a KMZ file in both Desktop and the browser, removing the prep work previously needed to handle individual KML files.
- Because Tableau unzips and reads the compressed file (a 5MB KMZ can hold a 99MB KML), expect connection and rendering to be a little slower than usual.
- KMZ files are often split into regions or sections, so you can keep one shared file and drag in only the geometry parts you actually need.
- You can pull geometry, name and description fields into the view, though descriptions may contain HTML or iframes rather than plain text.
0:00Hey it's Tim here, in today's video we're
0:02covering a new feature in 2021.1 which is
0:05the support for
0:05kmz spatial files. Now a kmz file sort of
0:08had me thinking what is a kmz file? So
0:11essentially
0:12I realized I didn't even know what a kml
0:13file was. So let's start with that, let's
0:15start over
0:15here right at the beginning. What is a kml
0:18file? So let's just ask google what is a km
0:21l file? You
0:22can see I recently searched for kmz. A kml
0:24file is essentially something called a key
0:26hole markup
0:27language. It's designed by google, it's
0:29typically using google maps and it's a nice
0:31way of delivering
0:32spatial data in a really sort of file
0:34efficient format. A kmz file is essentially
0:37exactly the same
0:38thing but packaged up in a zip folder. So
0:41that's all it is and with 2021.1 you now
0:44have the ability
0:45to connect directly to the package zip file
0:47rather than having to do some sort of you
0:50know prep work
0:51to those individual kml files to get them
0:53into one standard format. If we just take a
0:56look at this
0:56you'll probably see exactly what I mean by
0:58that. So we're going to do this in the
0:59browser because
1:00of course this is supported in both desktop
1:02and the web browser version. So anytime
1:04that happens
1:05I'm going to be doing it in the browser
1:06because that just might be the first
1:08experience some
1:09people will have going forward. So let's go
1:11ahead and just create a new workbook here.
1:13We're not
1:13going to do anything sort of fancy and the
1:15first thing you'll see is this option to
1:17connect to data.
1:18It will show us the data sources on our tab
1:20la online site but actually we can go here
1:22to files
1:23and we can just go ahead and upload from
1:25our computer. So we don't want to connect
1:27it we just
1:27want to upload from our computer and you
1:29can see here that I've downloaded a kmz
1:31file already. You
1:32can see here it's called the national_frskm
1:34z. Essentially I just downloaded a file from
1:37the
1:38united states you know geospatial
1:40organization that has lots of different
1:42spatial files and lots
1:43of different things and I found this one it
1:44's the first one I found I don't even know
1:46what's in it
1:46so we're going to find out together. I'm
1:49going to go ahead and connect to that and
1:51whilst that's
1:51happening in the background I'm just going
1:53to go ahead and go back to my file explorer
1:55. Let me just
1:56show you exactly what a kmz file is. So if
1:59I just view this as a list so we only have
2:01this in here
2:03we can right click and instead of opening
2:05it with google maps or anything you can see
2:07that my mac
2:08doesn't really know what this is. Anytime
2:10something is a packaged file what you can
2:11typically do is go
2:12ahead and select an other application and
2:15you can just essentially choose your
2:17archive utility. So
2:18on a mac I'm just going to type in archive
2:20and you'll see that it comes up there
2:22archive utility.
2:23Go ahead and open with that and you'll see
2:25that it unzips it and here's our kml file
2:28in that package.
2:28So essentially it's a 99 megabyte file
2:31before it was five megabytes so the zipped
2:33file is a lot
2:34smaller a lot more sort of compact and so
2:36tableau is connecting directly to that five
2:39meg file
2:39and and working with it so you should
2:41expect it to be a little bit slower than
2:42normal because it's
2:43having to deal with a lot of files. You may
2:45be spotted in the background here that this
2:47is
2:47actually now loaded so it took about you
2:49know two minutes while I was talking to do
2:51that and now you
2:52can see here's my spatial file and you can
2:54see this actually has a lot of other
2:56spatial information
2:57inside of it. I think it has all the
2:59different districts to be honest I'm not
3:02really sure what
3:03I'm looking at but you have lots of lots
3:05and lots of different things in here. I'm
3:07going to try and
3:07find something familiar like New York and
3:09just see if we can sort of figure something
3:11out with that.
3:12So let's here we go so you've got New York
3:14City let me just bring that in and let's
3:16see what
3:17happens so I'll just drag that into the
3:19view. You've got sort of lots of different
3:21numbers off
3:22to some of these because essentially what
3:24can happen is that you split out your kml
3:26files into
3:27sort of different regions of different
3:29sections just to make it easier to manage
3:30so if you only
3:31need one particular part of this data set
3:33then you can just drag that in. So if you
3:35're analyzing
3:36New York you might keep this one kmz file
3:38in a shared folder but only be bringing in
3:41the bits
3:41that you actually need from it every time
3:43you connect to data. So we're doing this on
3:45Tableau
3:45Online so you can kind of see what the
3:47experience is like. You can see here that I
3:49accidentally
3:49brought it in twice so let's just go ahead
3:51and remove one of these if I just go ahead
3:54and remove
3:54the second one. It's also it's a little bit
3:56slow I'm not gonna lie I don't know if it's
3:58because
3:59it's a Friday and America's just come
4:01online at the time that I'm recording here
4:03so it's two
4:04o'clock in the UK so typically I think you
4:06know at least the east coast is just coming
4:09online. You
4:10do notice a little bit of a drop in
4:11performance and I am connected to the
4:13American instance I
4:14can show you that here because if you look
4:17at my Tableau Online URL it's saying 10 ax
4:19so this is
4:20probably peak usage in America wherever
4:23this is okay so if I go ahead and go into
4:25my sheet I will
4:26go straight into this data set we'll just
4:28see what it actually has in it. I'll just
4:30double click
4:31geometry and see what we get see if we get
4:33any data points we do get some data points
4:35and again
4:35I don't really know what these are if I
4:38just drag the name onto the label we might
4:40get a little bit
4:41more descriptive information so this this
4:43feels like it's a data set specifically
4:46pertaining to
4:47certain types of buildings in America and
4:50this is file that has the for the whole
4:53entire country
4:55essentially but it's been broken down into
4:57these different parts of New York or these
4:59different
5:00parts of the United States and so each file
5:02essentially tells you the location of that.
5:04You can actually drag in a description let
5:06's see what's in there the description looks
5:08like it's
5:08a piece of HTML it's actually an iframe we
5:10could probably grab this link and go and
5:12have a look at
5:13this URL but that's probably a video for
5:15another time but I just wanted to show you
5:18that basically
5:19in this in this short video how to connect
5:21to a kmz file it's really no different to a
5:24kml file
5:25it's just optimizing the workflow for
5:27people who use that file day in day out so
5:29if you use spatial
5:30data this is a really nice quality of life
5:32improvement something I say on a lot of
5:33these
5:34things there's a lot of quality life
5:35improvements going on that tablet at the
5:37moment so hey that's
5:38a good thing to see. That's it for this
5:40video if you haven't already done so be
5:42sure to check out
5:42my other videos either here on youtube or
5:45be sure to go to tableautim.com if you go
5:47to the home page
5:48you'll see here on the home page we've got
5:50the what's new in tableau 2021.1 playlist
5:53if you go
5:53ahead and click on that this is actually
5:55being recorded before this list has been
5:57updated so
5:58by the time you get here there should be
6:00seven more videos on this page already for
6:02you to check
6:02out if you want to also check out some of
6:04my other playlists I just recently finished
6:06a playlist on
6:07level of detail calculations and I went
6:09into lots of depth I started with other
6:11concepts that you
6:12need to be familiar with before you get
6:14into LODs then I covered each of the LODs
6:16separately so be
6:17sure to check that out as well it's about
6:19two hours worth of content in there that's
6:20hopefully
6:21going to help you really get to grips with
6:23that as well okay thanks for watching this
6:24video and
6:25I'll catch you in the next one.
KMZ is essentially a zipped KML file and you can now open these directly in Tableau making your KML workflow much easier.